Connor sighed heavily as he reached out and grabbed the towel off the hook. “I knew you were crazy.”
She impatiently waved that off as if it were a given. “Just answer the damn question.”
“Couldn’t this have waited until we got to work?” Connor asked as he pulled the curtain back and stepped out, forcing her to back up or brush up against him. It actually freaked her out a little that she momentarily considered holding her ground just to see if those glistening muscles felt as good as they looked.
Oh, this was so wrong.
She was not attracted to the bastard. Okay, so that was a lie. The man was incredibly good-looking and he knew it. Normally, her attraction to him was easy to ignore since her hatred of him usually overshadowed that rather frightening reaction. Since he’d been taking care of her, she’d been having some difficulty ignoring her reaction to him, especially when he held her.
That was the reason that she was here. She needed to confront him and find out what sick and twisted game he was playing. As soon as he admitted that he’d taken care of her just to screw with her head, she’d be able to go back to loathing him so completely that she’d stop craving his touch. Then, of course, she’d kick his ass for making her think of him with anything other than revulsion.
“No,” Rory said firmly as she moved to block the doorway and his escape, but then rethought the plan since it would most likely result in that touching that she’d already convinced herself was a bad idea. So, she marched into his room instead. Once she managed to put some space between them, she motioned for him to get on with his answer.
With a sigh, Connor closed the bathroom door and locked it, leaving her fuming. “That lock won’t keep me out, you know!” she said loudly even as she had to admit to herself that the likelihood of her breaking into the bathroom a second time while he was naked was very unlikely. She needed to keep her wits about her and checking out his body, no matter how yummy it was, wouldn’t help her do that.
“Are you going to tell me what has your panties in a twist?” Connor demanded from the other side of the door.
“You going to tell me why you took care of me?” Rory snapped back, ignoring the panties’ comment since she knew that she wasn’t overreacting. The man was up to something and she wasn’t leaving until she figured it out.
“I think,” Connor said, opening the door and stepping into his bedroom wearing only a pair of cargo khaki pants that he’d left unbuttoned and may have drawn her attention for a moment before her eyes roamed up over a set of well-defined abs before she forced herself to look away, “that the better question is, why weren’t your brothers here to take care of you?”
“Because I was fine,” Rory said, waving off the comment in the hopes that he would just focus and answer her damn question so that she could go back to hating everything about him.
“Fine?” Connor repeated in disbelief, shaking his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what she’d just said. “You weren’t fine, Rory.”
“Of course, I was,” she lied, but the truth was that she was grateful for Connor’s help. She would have hated asking for her brothers’ help, mostly because they wouldn’t have had any clue on how to go about taking care of her. They were great brothers, but they had no idea what they were doing when it came to pretty much anything that didn’t involve a tool.
If she needed her car fixed, help moving, or a million other things, she wouldn’t hesitate to ask her brothers for help. For something like an injury or illness, they would have stood around, looking completely helpless.
It wasn’t their fault. That’s how they’d been raised, after all. Each and every one of them had been raised to be self-reliant. They learned early on how to take care of their own scraped knees and how to threaten the monster hiding in their closets with baseball bats. Their father made damn sure that they could take care of themselves so that they would never need or expect a handout from anyone. They knew how to manage their money, pay their bills, cook, clean, and work with their hands.
She knew that if she’d asked her brothers, they would have tried to help. Actually, if she’d asked her brothers to take care of her, they would have rushed her back to the hospital, thinking that she was dying or something. No one in the James family asked for help when they were sick or hurt. It just wasn’t done, which made what Connor did for her special.
No one had ever taken care of her before. It made her feel uncomfortable. She owed him and she hated that almost as much as she hated the fact that she liked being in his arms. It was unnatural and she was here to put a stop to it.
He walked towards her, not stopping until they were practically chest-to-chest, but she didn’t back down. She never would and he knew it.
“Fine?” Connor demanded, looking down at her as though she were crazy. “You had a concussion, five bruised ribs, and you broke your fucking arm, Rory. You weren’t fine and you sure as hell shouldn’t have been left to fend for yourself!” he snapped, sounding truly pissed, which only confused her more.
“Why do you care?” she asked, propping her hands on her hips as she did her best to out-glare the bastard.
“I don’t,” he snapped. “But I am seriously considering beating the shit out of your brothers for leaving you alone the other night. What the hell were they thinking?”
“Well, they-” she started to defend them, but apparently, he wasn’t done yet.
“You shouldn’t have been left alone, Rory. They should have made sure that you had your pills and that you were okay!”
“They called several-”
“That wasn’t enough!” Connor snapped, getting in her face and giving her no choice but to back up. She was so stunned by his outburst that she didn’t realize what was happening until her back hit the wall and he was caging her in.
“Instead of coming over here and getting pissed at me for something that your family should have done, why don’t you try saying thank you instead, huh?” Connor demanded as he got in her face and before she could tell him to back the hell off or come to her brothers’ defense, his mouth was on hers, hard and demanding, and God help her, but she didn’t want him to stop.
But he did.
Before she could do something stupid like kiss him back or wrap her arms around him, he was pulling away, jaw clenched and looking even more pissed than before. Without a word, and before she could think beyond what just happened, Connor grabbed her by her shoulders and steered her out of his room and onto his patio, where the cool morning air brought her back to her senses.
“Thank you!” she snapped, pissed at him and pissed at herself, because coming over here hadn’t helped one damn bit. Instead of clearing her head of him, all she wanted to do was go right back in there and kiss the bastard and that was wrong, so very wrong.
