I’m suddenly aware that wearing heels on a ladder isn’t one of my finest ideas as the ladder rocks, parodying a dance, as my foot barely catches a lower tread. My heart leaps into my mouth, and in a panic to avoid broken limbs during my first week, I struggle and overcorrect... and the ladder dances perilously again.
‘Fuck me!’
The expletive, yelled through gritted teeth, sounds detached and strangled. Not surprising, considering I’m about to meet the ground fast and on an involuntary basis, when unexpectedly, my flailing is halted, the ladder planting itself on the floor with a resoundingthump.I’m no longer falling but lying against a chest, a very solid, male chest, as my heart continues to do a pretty good impersonation of a dryer full of wet running shoes.
‘Correct me if I’m wrong.’ The chest pressed against my back rumbles, the accompanying voice refined, deeply masculine, and amused. ‘But isn’t it customary to offer dinner first?’
My heart moves into my throat and I swallow hard, my resulting reply somewhere between a ‘what’ and a grunt. Attempting to unhook my foot from the offending rung, his hands, long-fingered and elegant, I can’t help but notice, steady my arms.
‘And even then I don’t always put out.’Is that an English accent?
I twist my head over my shoulder, the retort sat at the end of my tongue dissolving immediately.Wow. His eyes, they’re startling. Almost amber in colour with long inky lashes by way of a frame. He has the kind of eyes you read about in books; eyes that weaken knees and knicker elastic all with the mere quirk of a brow.Was that pinging I just heard?
As I try to fire my dazed synapses—with about the same effectiveness as a caveman with two wet sticks—I get the impression he’d like very much to laugh. Probably at me rather thanwith, as he attempts to master the smile building on his generous mouth.
Generous, pouty and bite-able.
Bite-able, really? I’ve got to stop reading those kinds of books.
Stock-still and half turned, one hand grasping the metal frame of the ladder—probably a sensible precaution due to a high probability of an oncoming swoon—I become aware the stranger has spoken, his lips moving as my brain scrambles to catch up.
‘There’s nothing I like more than a pretty mouth full of dirty words, so really, thanks are unnecessary.’
My mouth works soundlessly as I remember Niamh describing a guy she’d once dated as having “eyes put in with a sooty thumb”. The description suddenly makes sense.But did he just say...
‘You want me to thank you for telling me I’ve got a dirty mouth?’
‘I think you’ll find I said you had a pretty,’—his eyes flick almost imperceptibly to the orifice in question— ‘mouth.’
Oh, well that’s a bit different. Jesus, you could hang your coat off those cheekbones.
‘Would you like me to call maintenance? The caretaker?’ An eyebrow rises in enquiry, his gaze sliding the length of my body and to the hammer on the floor.
‘How about you just let go of my arms and let me down.’
Rich laughter fills the room as he does so, leaving one hand outstretched between us. ‘Ms Saunders, I presume?’
With a terse nod, I place my hand in his, unable to stop studying him from his head down. Mediterranean skin, the kind that reminds me of warm caramel, and an incongruous dusting of freckles across an aquiline nose. His dark hair falls a little too long across his collar in a style that screamstouch me, I’m artfully messy.
I resist the invitation, but only just.
‘I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,’ I reply curtly and with an inward cringe. Please tell me I did not just come over all Regency Period in front of a seriously hot guy. Quick, someone pass me the smelling salts. Or possibly a gun. ‘And justhowdo you know my name?’
‘The door,’ he replies, amused.
Ah, yep. There it is, painted within a picture of a sunflower the size of my head. As I don’t have an answer that doesn’t include some kind of serious blush, I opt instead to straighten my clothes. Viewed from under my lashes, I can tell he’s tall but it’s his face that takes my entire focus. It’s a face that could easily belong to another time; ancient Greece or Rome, but that feels too generic somehow. Less warrior and more lover, his dark, strong features are softened by his too full lips. Still, I can almost see him in a breastplate and a helmet.Or maybe just a helmet.
Willing away the images, I bend down to pick up the hammer at the moment he does the same.
‘Ow!Watch what—’
‘Have you got rocks in your head?’
His hand flies to his nose. My own, meanwhile, covers my thumping skull.
‘If you’d just minded your own business, this wouldn’t have happened.’ Placing the hammer on a rung of the ladder, I rub my head, the sharpness having developed into a dull thud.
‘What, I should’ve left you to fall?’ His tone is highly incredulous, even spoken through the hand covering his mouth as he pinches the bridge of his obviously sore nose.
