Untamed Bachelors: When He Was Bad... / Interview with a Playboy / The Shameless Life of Ruiz Acosta

‘So…I’ll call you when I get back and maybe we can—’

‘There’s no point, Sasha, it’s just not practical. Good luck with everything. Goodbye.’ And have a nice life. She stabbed the disconnect button.

She’d thought they were friends. But true friends didn’t let each other down. When was she going to learn? Ellie had some kind of in-built radar that sent people running in the opposite direction.

Remember that when you think about Matt McGregor.

As befitting her mood, ten minutes later it started to spit—a cold, ugly, misty spit. Ellie pulled on her thin plastic poncho and continued digging. She would not quit on account of rain. Unlike Sasha, she’d prove herself reliable and responsible and accountable if it killed her.

Matt pulled himself mentally and physically out of his work. He glanced at his watch, surprised to find he’d worked through the lunch break he’d set himself. He’d intended talking Ellie into sharing a coffee. Stretching fingers cramped from working the keyboard, he wrapped them around his neck and glanced at the window. Rain spattered the glass.

He walked to the kitchen window and saw her. Mud splattered her overalls up to her knees. She was measuring and pouring pellets into her hand, sprinkling them over the earth, then moving on to repeat the procedure. The misty rain speckled the flimsy plastic she’d pulled on but the cap had blown off, leaving dark honey locks damp and curling over her head.

His gaze narrowed. Yesterday he’d raised the question of her responsibility. After all, it was she who’d labelled herself irresponsible. Was she now trying to prove a point? Responsible was all well and good, but there wasn’t much point to it if the woman came down with pneumonia.

He stalked to the back door, grabbing an umbrella from the coat stand on the way. Rain spattered his soft leather shoes. It wasn’t heavy but constant, and obviously had been for some time. But the wind was fierce—it snuck under the umbrella, threatening to turn it inside out.

She was facing away from him and didn’t hear his approach. Or was she choosing not to?

‘Why the hell are you still out here in this weather?’ He reached for her shoulder to swing her around but she squealed and jerked and he lost his footing in the slimy mud her digging had created. The umbrella was forgotten as he fought the inevitable and ignominious slide to the ground, taking her with him.

At the last second he managed to twist them both so that she landed on top of him in a blur of limbs and bad language. While he was still trying to catch his breath, he stared up at the rain-spattered sky, contemplating this example of life’s little jokes. Cold muddy moisture seeped through the back of his jumper, a striking contrast to the warm wet body plastered against his chest.

When she didn’t move, he raised his head and wheezed, ‘You all right?’

‘Oh, yeah, never better,’ she snapped. Apparently unconcerned that he might be on his last breath, her only movement was to disentangle her legs from his and tug on the strap of her overalls.

He would have laughed at the situation but what air was left in his lungs exploded out of him as her elbow jabbed him in the solar plexus.

‘Sorry.’ She twisted some more, the sound of plastic crinkling as she continued struggling to free herself. He didn’t try to help. Giving up the attempt for the moment, she glared down at him. ‘What were you thinking?’

Rain-spiked lashes blinked at him over those gorgeous lilac-coloured eyes. When he could breathe again, he smelled summer raspberries and her own brand of hot feminine scent. The scent a woman exudes after a healthy bout of exercise. Or sex. He took this unique opportunity to draw it in slowly.

What had she said? Something about thinking…‘I wasn’t.’ If he’d been thinking he’d have engineered this scenario somewhere dry—on Belle’s Persian rug in front of a roaring fire, for instance. Minus the wet clothing.

‘I was reacting,’ he continued, ‘to your hare-brained idea of working outdoors in these conditions.’

‘It’s where most gardening’s done.’ She rolled a shoulder, the movement shifting her breasts against his stomach. He wasn’t sure, but he imagined he could feel two stiff nipples jutting just above his navel.

A spear of heat shot through his body, angling straight to his groin. Doing his damnedest to ignore it, he stared up at the sky again and continued with, ‘So is this your attempt to prove you’re responsible or stubborn or both?’

Her hips chafed against his as she dragged a trapped hand from between their bodies to push at her crinkled hair. ‘What’s a little rain, for heaven’s sakes?’

His gaze shifted to her face. To her eyes, irises dark with some unnamed emotion she refused to admit to. Her mouth, damp with rain and a tempting whisper from his own. He could kiss her now, drink in the freshness of raindrops and Ellie. ‘For one thing, it’s wet. And damn cold.’

She stared back at him, shook her head. ‘You indoor career types are too soft.’

He didn’t feel soft. And if she didn’t quit squirming against him like that she was going to find that out for herself.

And bingo: She went completely still, and when he looked, her eyes had widened. He watched the colour intensify, her cheeks turn a shade pinker before she scrambled up on her knees and pushed away. Up. Pieces of her now-shredded plastic poncho flapped like flags in the wind.

‘Stubborn, then,’ he muttered. He pushed up too, his jumper peeling away from the mud with a slimy sound. An instant chill cloaked his body. ‘We’d better get out of these wet clothes.’

Without looking at him she picked up her trowel. ‘You go ahead, I need to clean up here first.’

‘Leave it, I’ll come out later and tidy up.’

‘My job, I’ll do it.’

‘Fine. Catch pneumonia.’

Without looking at him, she stacked everything in the barrow, including the mangled umbrella, with infuriating slowness, then wheeled it to the garden shed. So be it. He could be as ridiculously stubborn about this as she.

He waited until she locked up, put the key in its hidey-hole, then took her sweet time walking back with her pack on her shoulder. Even from metres away he could see she was shivering, that now the blush had faded, her cheeks were pale and there were dark circles beneath her eyes.

He met her halfway across the lawn. He didn’t think about whether she’d object, just took her chilled wet hand in his. ‘Come on.’ He hustled her up the path to the verandah, pulling away the plastic remains of her poncho as they shuffled under shelter and into the laundry. ‘A hot shower will warm you up. Or a bath. Whichever you prefer.’

‘No. I’ll be all right.’

‘Ellie.’ Concerned now, he shot her a stern look. ‘You’re wet through. You’re going to take that shower if I have to put you under it myself.’ He peeled off his sodden jumper, tossed it on the floor.

Her gaze slid like a hot silk glove down his chest. He was about to make a joke of it all, but something warned him she wouldn’t see the humour right now. She gulped, then lifted panicked eyes to his. ‘I’m all muddy.’

‘That you are. I’ll find you some of Belle’s clothes.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m not trailing mud and water all through the house.’

‘Take off your shoes.’ He stepped out of his, removed his socks.

Ellie did the same, then looked up at him. Not looking at that gloriously exposed chest. Oh, why had she thought working in the rain was a good idea? At the time she hadn’t given any thought to the mud factor. Nor had she counted on them wallowing in it. Together. ‘My shoes aren’t the only things covered in mud.’

She regretted those words instantly. She felt the heat in his gaze as it travelled over the rest of her and wondered why her clothes weren’t steaming.

‘Same here.’ If anything, he was in a worse state than her. The entire length of him was iced in shiny brown mud. He unsnapped his sodden jeans.

Ah…‘What are you doing?’

‘Someone has to do something if we’re going to find clean dry clothes,’ he said, being entirely too practical.

It took a moment for him to ease his jeans over his hips and step out of them. Involuntarily—that’s what she told herself—her eyes followed his fingers down the length of his strongly muscled thighs and over his knees to the hairy calves and long knobbly toes as he shucked the denim off.

And, oh…My goodness. Except for a pair of navy boxers which rode low on his lean hips, he was stark-staring naked. She sucked in a breath.

Imagine him naked.

But the perfection of his golden-toned body was even better than her imagination had been able to conjure up. She could smell his skin. Two steps closer and she’d be able to reach out and touch. Another step and she’d be able to taste.

No. If she let him close again, she was going to fall for him; she just knew it. And it would be a much harder landing than that soft mudslide a few moments ago. Safer to keep her distance. And the only way to keep that distance was to not give him any encouragement.