The rough tone of his voice made her breath catch. She waited, staring up at him as her heart drummed out of control, but he never told her what he did want.
* * *
HARLOW MARVELED. In a single day, her world had been dumped upside down and turned inside out. Again.
After months of sleeping in a patchwork tent, she’d finally slept in a real bed, utter softness enveloping her. She’d taken a hot shower in a bathroom all her own, lingering until the steam died out. She’d eaten her fill anytime a hunger pang hit, and had drunk a tall glass of juice anytime her mouth went dry.
Life was suddenly, amazingly perfect, and in the bright light of the new morning, sprawled in her new bed in her new RV, she laughed. The queen-size bed consumed the back of the vehicle, the sheets a decadent caress against her skin. No more fearing the coming winter, warmed by old clothes, ratty blankets others had discarded, fires she’d started, and finicky rays of the sun.
A brand-new cell phone rested on the nightstand. An actual phone with apps and everything. The fridge was fully stocked, even though she’d devoured enough food to feed an army.
She lacked only one thing. Someone to share her good fortune.
She imagined Beck lying beside her, his strong arms embracing her, his warm breath tickling her hair, and tendrils of electric heat curled around her. Silly Harlow. He might be her benefactor, but there was no white knight lurking underneath his beautiful he-slut shell. He was temporary. She was forever.
“Knock, knock,” the male in question said as he entered the RV without knocking. “Rise and shine, thornbush.”
“Thornbush?” She sat up, not bothering to clutch the comforter to her chest. She’d fallen asleep with her clothes on, for which she was suddenly grateful. Seeing him set off a chain reaction of sensations inside her. Tingles along her flesh, a conflagration in her veins, both stealing the air from her lungs.
“I’m trying out different nicknames until I find the one that works for you,” he said with a shrug.
“What’s wrong with the usual honey and sweetheart?”
“They don’t fit you.”
Wow. Okay. Talk about a major punch in the gut. But she sucked it up and offered him the brightest smile she could manage.
He rolled his eyes. “It’s a good thing. You’re memorable. The others were not.”
Oh.
“Well, here’s an idea,” she said in an effort to mask her delight. “Try Harlow. It’s easy. Say it with me, Harrr-looow.”
“Hayyy-booow.”
She giggled. He laughed, then held out two paper coffee cups, the scent of caffeine, sugar and cream wafting from the rims. “You want one?”
“Yes!”
He placed both on the granite countertop in the small kitchenette. Just out of her reach. A clear incentive to “rise and shine.”
“You are a cruel, cruel man.”
“I do what I must.” He propped his shoulder against the frame of the open doorway, looking inhumanly beautiful in a dark pin-striped suit, his hair brushed back from his face, a slight glint of stubble on his jaw.
My heartbeat is not quickening. My blood is cooling, not growing hotter.
“This is your first day working for me,” he said.
“You mean for WOH Industries.”
“No. I mean me.” He arched a brow, daring her to contradict him a second time. “Are you nervous?”
“Hardly.”
“You should be. Your boss will yell at you if you’re late.”
“You’re my boss and my ride.”
“Exactly. I’m always late.”
There would be no understanding him today. Noted.
“Before we head off, I should probably go over the ground rules.” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “At the office, I’ll call you Miss Glass. You will call me Mr. Ockley.” A gleam of mirth brightened his expression, somehow doing the impossible and making him more beautiful. “Or you may call me sir. Yes, definitely go with sir.”
“No way. We are not part of an erotica novel,” she said.
“Erotica, hmm?” His grin was wide, devastating. “Tell sir all about the naughty things you’ve read.”
She laughed, trying not to be utterly enchanted by him. “Well, just last night I read about the mating habits of penquins. Did you know they have—”
“Way to ruin the sparks we had going.”
“We had sparks?” she asked, just to be contrary.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Or not. Yeah, probably not. We’ve got a big day, and I could use a little eye candy as inspiration.”
For a moment, she wanted to bask in the glow of his praise. He considered her eye candy? Then she remembered he hadn’t seen her scars. “I’ll ignore your early start at sexual harassment and get dressed just as soon as you exit my bedroom.”
“Why? You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”
“Actually, I do,” she said, throwing a pillow at him. It thudded against the wide expanse of his chest and fell harmlessly to the floor. He laughed, the sound as beautiful as the rest of him. “For all you know, my anything is better than any other you’ve seen.” It wasn’t. It soooo wasn’t. She was so scarred even a man of his nondiscriminating taste would be sickened.
“You think so?” His gaze dropped to her chest. “Show me.” A croak. But was it a demand—or a plea?
Desire mingled with panic, and she gulped. “Not even if you begged me.”