Authors: Jane O'Reilly
Ella wouldn’t have panicked at the sight of a camera. She wouldn’t have done what Nic did next, either, which was to turn on her heel and run at full pelt back into the garage. But then Ella was perfect.
And Nic was not.
She let out a silent scream as she headed back to the rear of the garage and the car she’d been working on. Her mind was a jumble of mixed emotions, but one shouted louder than all the rest.
Anxiety. Shocking, sickening anxiety. A thundering in her chest that made it hard to breathe, and the little voice whispering
look what you did, you stupid, ugly cow.
Footsteps sounded on the garage floor, loud and squelchy. Her heart thundering, Nic grabbed a random spanner from her workbench and hopped down into the pit. ‘I’m busy,’ she yelled. ‘Go away.’
The footsteps came to a halt at the edge of the pit. Soggy red Converse. Wet denim turned dark, clinging to long, well-muscled legs. Nic fixed her gaze on the underside of Mrs Bawden’s Fiesta and located a likely looking bolt at the side of the exhaust pipe. She set the spanner to it.
‘Not bloody likely,’ came the response. His voice was husky, and riddled with warning. It made her shake. ‘Get up here.’
‘I’m working.’
Sebastian sighed. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. And then he went quiet. Alarmingly, suspiciously quiet.
From her position under the car, Nic couldn’t see anything higher than mid-thigh, and seeing how the wet denim clung to heavy, well-developed quadriceps made her mouth go dry. Then something slapped down against the concrete by his feet. Something white and dripping wet, rolled up in to a lopsided ball.
Nic stared at it for a moment, utterly confused. And then her mess of a brain figured out what it was. Just as Sebastian dropped into the pit.
Naked from the waist up.
His skin was lusciously tanned. Tiny droplets of water clung to it, dotting the curve of his pectorals, the bumps of muscle in his stomach. A few cheeky drops were sneaking down to the waistband of jeans which hung low and heavy on his hips. The tan stopped an inch or so above the denim, but the narrow line of damp, dark hair that started at his bellybutton did no such thing.
It went all the way down. And if she thought the wet denim defined his thighs, it was nothing compared to what it did to his crotch.
‘Speechless looks good on you,’ he said. ‘I like it. You should attack me with a hosepipe more often.’
‘I did not attack you!’ Nic ripped her gaze away from his naked body and fixed it firmly back on the engine. ‘Anyway,’ she added with a sniff, ‘you deserved it.’
‘I deserved to be drenched with ice cold water?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Why?’
‘Because…’ she gritted her teeth and wrapped her damp fingers tightly round the spanner, ‘you filled my forecourt with photographers without giving me any warning. And then you suggested that I let them take my photo while I looked like…’ she pulled on the bolt. It didn’t budge.
‘Looked like what?’
‘Like a total fricking mess, that’s what!’ She pulled again, harder this time, focussing all her fury, all her shame, all her frustration on that stupid, rusted bolt. Something moved.
But it wasn’t the bolt. Nic felt herself stumble backwards, straight into a solid wall of hard, wet muscle. The spanner hit the concrete with a clang. Her entire body seemed to stop for a minute — heart, lungs, everything — and then explode back into life. Pain screamed across her palm, her fingers curling over it, but not before she’d seen the two neatly sliced edges of flesh. Then the valley filled with blood, bright red and burning.
Someone swore. Nic couldn’t tell if it was her, Sebastian, or both of them together, but the rude little word at least reminded her that he was human, somewhere inside that perfect body.
Long fingers closed over her wrist as his other arm moved around her waist, holding her against him. She shouldn’t like it, god knows she shouldn’t, but he felt strong and safe, in stark contrast to her own vulnerable, wobbly state. ‘It’s not that bad,’ she protested, wondering why on earth she’d said that when she’d seen for herself that it was bad with a capital B.
‘Shut up, Nic.’ He leaned to one side, grabbed his wet t-shirt and held it against her palm. ‘We need to get you out of here. Do you feel faint?’
Ever since the second you took your shirt off. ‘No.’
‘Truth?’
‘I’m in no fit state to accept a dare,’ Nic pointed out.
‘Hmm.’ His breath warmed the nape of her neck. She might have tingled, if she wasn’t so busy trying to pretend her hand didn’t hurt like there was no tomorrow. ‘Okay. I’m going to sit up on the edge of the pit. Then I’m going to lift you out. Got that?’
Nic was still processing that instruction when large hands gripped her firmly under the arms and she found herself being hoisted up and out of the pit. A moment later she was nestled firmly between Sebastian’s thighs, her feet dangling close to his ankles. She didn’t even want to think about what her bottom was touching. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘I’ll go get the first aid kit.’
‘I don’t think so, princess. You’re going straight to A and E.’
An hour later Nic found herself sat on a sweaty plastic chair, her hand bandaged in a clean tea towel, her mood thunderous. The woman on reception fiddled with her flowery blouse and glanced their way, giving her a sympathetic smile.
The only reason she didn’t stick her tongue out in return was because Sebastian was watching her like a hawk. He’d changed into the spare set of overalls that hung on the back of the office door, then driven her to the hospital in the Jaguar before physically picking her up and carrying her into A and E. She’d swear the only reason she’d been waiting so long was because all the nurses had swooned at the sight of him striding in like Sir Lancelot in dodgy overalls.
She’d never been more embarrassed in her entire life. If her hand didn’t feel like it was about to fall off, she’d tell Sebastian exactly where he could stick his business partnership. But as things stood, she was in a hole deeper than the garage pit he’d pulled her out of.
Her hands were, quite literally, the tools of her trade. An injured hand meant she couldn’t work. And if she couldn’t work, how was she supposed to keep things going?
More than that, how was she supposed to fix herself a car in time for Misses and Motors? It was nothing short of an A-grade disaster. At the root of it all was Ella. Ella had dropped her in this situation. But her stepsister wasn’t here, so instead she focussed her foul mood on Sebastian.
If only he wasn’t pretty much the only person who could help her out of the mess she was in.
‘Miss Sinclair?’ called a nurse from the other side of reception, a clipboard in one hand.
‘Here,’ called Nic. With a quick glance at Sebastian, who was deep in a copy of
Guilty Pleasures
magazine, she got to her feet, steeled her spine, and went to get herself some stitches.
By the time they made it back to Lostwithiel it was late evening, the dark pushing at the light, and Sebastian’s stomach was complaining loudly. He ignored it. He had more important things to think about, like the long, hot shower he was going to take as soon as he got home. And Nic.
A hot shower and Nic. Get those things sorted, and he’d feel normal again. He’d be able to shake off this hideous sense of unease, the acidic burn in his stomach, the feeling of not being quite steady.
Tiredness, he decided. It had been a crazy couple of days. All he needed to do was get Nic into bed, make sure she took the painkillers that the doctor had forced her to bring home, and he’d be able to head off. He’d get a pizza delivered, watch trash on the TV and sleep till noon. And why not? He was his own boss right now. He was going to make the most of it.
‘I’ll be fine now.’ Nic took a moment to unlock the door tucked away around the side of the garage. It swung silently open as the security lights flicked on automatically, drowning the pair of them in sharp white light. ‘Thanks for everything. See you tomorrow.’
She sounded like the annoying robot female on sat nav. ‘Everyone hates hospitals,’ Sebastian pointed out. ‘It’s okay if you feel a little creeped out.’ Get her inside, he told himself. Get her into bed, and go home. Through the open door he could see a little entranceway, no bigger than the doormat that sat inside it, and a set of steep stairs.
‘I’m fine,’ she said again, walking forward into the space. ‘You were the one sat in the waiting room holding a magazine upside down.’
‘I was not,’ he said, though he wasn’t sure if it was true. He’d barely been able to focus on anything in that damn place. Even breathing took concentration, what with the hospital smell filling his nostrils every time he took in oxygen. He’d let their trip to casualty get to him. Worse than that, he’d let it show, and he never showed that sort of vulnerability. He would not let her think he was pathetic. This was about Nic, not about him. ‘Just shows how much pain you were in, if you were hallucinating.’
‘I was worried about you.’ She glanced back at him over her shoulder, but didn’t quite meet his gaze. ‘You seemed…distracted.’
Sebastian shrugged. ‘You’d be distracted if you were wearing overalls three sizes too small. Anyway, this isn’t about me. You had what, fifteen stitches?’
‘Twelve. And like I told you, it’s nothing.’ She started up the stairs, fingers resting on the rail.
‘A dozen stitches is not nothing,’ Sebastian pointed out. He didn’t know if she wanted him to follow her up or not, but as she hadn’t told him not to, he decided to do exactly that. ‘Your hand is a mess.’
‘Thanks for pointing that out.’
‘Have you always been so damn stubborn?’ He watched as she fumbled with the keys, trying to manage the bunch one handed. When they slipped from her fingers and hit the floor, he scooped them up before she could even get close.
She glared at him, her face pale and tired. ‘Give me my keys!’
Sebastian put a hand to her waist and moved her out of the way. ‘When we’re done,’ he told her shortly, unlocking the door and shoving it open. He fumbled at the wall by the door until he located a switch, then flicked it.
‘Believe me,’ she snapped. ‘We’re done.’
‘Princess, I wish that were true. I really do. But we’ve barely even begun. Now are you going to sit yourself down on the sofa, or do I have to put you there?’
She shoved her way past him, face sulky, but her attempt to look capable was marred by the way she cradled her bandaged hand against her chest.
Sebastian closed the door gently behind him, tucked his hands in his pockets, and took in her tiny flat with a single, sweeping glance. Small living area, minimally furnished with a cheap yellow sofa that had a sweatshirt slung over the back. A pile of magazines sat next to an even higher pile of DVD’s. Her social life?
Looking around, he didn’t find it hard to believe that it was. Didn’t she need company? Other people?
To his left lay a small, functional kitchen. He found a glass on the drainer and rinsed it out, then filled it with cold water from the tap and took it through to Nic. ‘Here,’ he said, pushing it into her good hand. ‘Now for god’s sake, take the pills before the wind changes and you get stuck as a complete cow forever.’
Her shoulders stiffened as she set the glass down on the floor and pulled the bottle of pills from her pocket. Sebastian felt a kick of regret at his words as he watched her struggle with the lid. He waited for her to ask him to do it.
She didn’t.
He sat himself next to her on the sofa and grabbed the bottle from her hand. ‘For god’s sake, princess, don’t you know when to ask for help?’ He popped the lid and shook out a couple. ‘Stick out your tongue.’
Her head jerked up, and those big dark eyes fixed on him. He saw pain in the creases that fanned out from the corners. But more than that, he saw awareness, as that darkness became almost black, and colour gathered in those pale cheeks. ‘Open,’ he said softly.
She hesitated for the briefest of moments, then did as she was told.
Sebastian slowly deposited the small white capsules on the end of her tongue. The heat of her mouth caressed his fingertips as she exhaled a jerky breath.
She’s hurt
, he told himself fiercely.
This is not happening. Don’t be a jerk.
But knowing it was wrong didn’t stop him wanting to take everything she was offering. He wanted to kiss her, and he wanted to do it hard and deep and now.
Then she turned her head, and the moment was gone. But the urge, well that remained exactly where it was. All he could think about was soft lips and great legs and how much watching her work had turned him on.
She picked up the glass, lifted it to her lips and gulped down the water, then got up and disappeared through a door on the other side of the room. The door didn’t quite slam behind her, but it wasn’t far off.
Rubbing his hands over his face, Sebastian huffed out a breath. What was he still doing here? Why hadn’t he shoved her in the door, chucked the bottle in after her, and then left? What was he doing getting comfortable on her sofa?
‘I’m going to bed now,’ came a shout from the other side of the door.
‘What?’
‘I’m going to bed!’ A drawer slammed, and a bed creaked. Sebastian knew he should take the hint, given what had just happened, but her sofa had the extreme comfort of a well
loved piece of furniture and he couldn’t quite persuade himself to move. Plus she had looked like hell. What if she passed out?
More muffled sounds came from the other side of the door. Sitting forward on the sofa, Sebastian picked up the remote, turned on the TV and started to flick. Bad TV was bad TV no matter where you watched it, he reasoned
As soon as she was asleep, he’d leave. Yup. That was a good plan, and not that far removed from the original one. She was his business partner, and it was his duty to make sure she was okay. Rolling out his shoulders, he tried to unlock viciously tense muscles. Nothing short of a medical emergency was going to get him on the other side of that door, but it didn’t stop him thinking about it. Thinking about her, and what she was doing in there.
He flicked through a few channels, found a twenty-four hour cartoon channel and let Road Runner pull him through a few mindless minutes. An anvil was in freefall when the door opened.