Can't Fight This Feeling (12 page)

Brett let her go. Because for the first time he’d found the right—though wrong—thing that would keep her at bay.

CHAPTER NINE

A
FTER
HIS
LONG
HOURS
with Angelica had ended, Brett couldn’t settle. She’d gone silent after their lunch, no surprise, but he couldn’t fault her work ethic. Without complaint, she’d followed his directions the entire day.

But the physical labor had exhausted her. He’d seen it in the slow way she’d climbed out of the truck. Her gait had been halting as she made her way into her own cabin.

So here he was, showered clean and tired himself, unable to do anything but stare through the windows to the place next door. He’d yet to eat, though the homemade chili on the stove was heated through.

There was enough for two.

He had the wherewithal not to tempt fate by bringing both their dinners to her door. Instead he ladled a generous but single serving into an oversize mug and tucked a sleeve of crackers in his sweatshirt pocket. He’d pass the food over the threshold and leave her alone just as soon as he made sure she hadn’t done herself any lasting injury.

On her porch, he hesitated. She’d been bushed. Maybe the princess was already asleep.

Then he heard music. A voice. She was singing.

He grinned. She really shouldn’t. It broke off when his knuckles rapped on the door.

“Yes?” Angelica called out.

“I’m from the TV show
The Voice
,” he called. “Here to beg you not to audition.”

The door swung open.
“The Voice?”
she repeated, one dark eyebrow winging up.

“Yes, darling, and you don’t have one.”

She pursed her lips as if she was trying not to laugh. “What are you doing here?” Her glance took in the steaming chili.

“I brought dinner in case you were too beat to make some for yourself.”

Her big browns flared wide with surprise. “You brought me dinner.”

He shrugged, uncomfortable. “The least I could do.”

“You brought me dinner.” She sounded pleased now.

“As an apology,” Brett muttered. Then his gaze slid past her to see that the living room furniture had been pushed together and covered with an old sheet. A ladder stood in the middle of the room and there was paint, brushes and a roller arranged nearby. “What are you doing?”

“Poppy said I could,” Angelica answered quickly.

He brushed past her to put the food he’d brought on the kitchen counter. “I’m not accusing you of anything.” Then he crossed to the paint can and peered into it. The color was a pale, creamy gold, the color of the sunlight through the trees on an autumn afternoon. “I like that shade.”

She hovered by the open door.

“Are you going to shut that?” He realized he should take the hint and head back out. But his curiosity was roused. A long day of manual labor and she was willingly embarking on yet another task? “Can’t this wait until tomorrow...or the one after that? Your muscles must be sore.”

I can massage the hurt out of them. Go in the bedroom, strip down and let me put my hands on you.
He recalled the little fantasy he’d had the day he thought she was going to the spa.

“I’ve been looking forward to this all day,” she said.

The surprising statement dragged his mind away from that dangerous direction. “Looking forward to
painting
?”

She shrugged. “I get a discount at the hardware store. I love looking at the color samples and I often daydream about what they’d look like on walls.” Her gaze dropped to the floor. “Weird, huh?”

“Can’t say it’s the kind of visualizing I play around with myself, but I get it.”

Her head came up and her eyes widened. “Yeah?”

“Sure. I design landscapes in my head all the time. When I’m working, I’ll mentally replant shrubs, move boulders, add a water feature.”

“You should build that lodge that you imagined here. It’s fabulous.”

He smiled a little, surprised she even recalled the drawings. “I’m not going to be merely mowing and blowing forever—I’ve got plans for the design part of my business. But some dreams don’t come true, honey.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m painting walls.”

Her enthusiasm bemused him. “So it’s really an ambition of yours?”

“As long as I can remember.”

His expression must have communicated his disbelief.

“Truly. The homes I’ve lived in have been professionally—very expensively—decorated. I was never allowed to move a cushion, hang a poster, paper my own bedroom wall.”

“Don’t. Wallpaper’s a bitch to remove, and you’ll get tired of it, believe me.”

Her smile had a surprising sweetness. “I’d like a chance to find that out.”

“Talk to Shay about the bathroom she had sophomore year in college. It was in an old house and there were something like five layers, each more god-awful than the one before. I suggested just painting over the mess, but she wouldn’t hear of it.”

“So you got in there with a scraper, I presume.”

“You guessed it. A scraper and a rented steamer.” He shook his head. “What a sucker. I think I did all that work for a medium pepperoni pizza.”

“You’re no sucker, Brett,” Angelica said.

Uh-oh.
They were suddenly swerving into dangerous territory. The new warmth in her brown eyes was like heat on his skin. It tugged on his dick and ignited the burner beneath his lust. He wasn’t here for this.

“Stop,” he said harshly. “You know how I am.”

“I think I’m finally beginning to.” She glanced at the chili, then looked back at him. “You’ve been honest with me, so I should offer my own apology...”

“For what?”

Pink washed her beautiful face. “This past summer... I don’t blame you for holding me off. I was sort of...well, there’s no sort-of about it.”

He frowned. “About what?”

She glanced away again. “I hate to admit it...”

“Spit it out, princess.”

“I wasn’t interested in ‘slumming’ like you said. It wasn’t because there was dirt on your hands or sweat on your back or because of your scars. But I was...”

“Well?”

“Objectifying you.”

His brows rose.

“Now that I think about it, I’m not very proud of myself. I crushed on you from afar.” Her voice lowered to a whisper. “I used to watch you from my bedroom window whenever you came to the house.”

He remembered the tingle on the back of his neck every time he worked at her estate. “That’s no crime.”

“Could be that what I was thinking about was illegal.”

“Really?” Drawing out the word, he tried not to laugh. God, she tickled his funny bone as well as his libido. “Do tell.”

She peeked at him from beneath her lashes. He didn’t think she knew how fucking appealing he found that.

Which meant he should go, he thought, sobering. Immediately. But his feet didn’t obey his mental order.

“Truth time,” she murmured, as if to herself. Then she cleared her throat. “You have a rock-hard body, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

Uh, yeah
, he thought, thinking about the shaft rising beneath the placket of his jeans.

“And without a shirt...” She rolled her eyes as if savoring a special treat. “But I feel bad about my...uh, appreciation. I didn’t know a thing about you.”

“You thought I had a girlfriend. That I might be married.”

“See?” she said. “And I still admired every one of your muscles at every opportunity.”

“Shameless,” he chided, teasing her.

“Shameless?” She blinked, and he thought she might be a little proud of the fact. “Huh. Me, shameless.”

Her pleased tone made him grin. “Princess, I looked back at you, you know.”

Her eyes rounded.

“There was this one time I caught you in a bathing suit. I made a note of it on my calendar.”

“Well, we know you have this thing for bikinis,” she said, a prim note to her voice.

He grinned. “Believe me. You have a special way when you’re wearing one, princess.”

Now her cheeks went rosy, and she lifted a hand to brush a tendril of hair away from one. Elastic bandages circled every finger.

Frowning, he crossed to her in three long strides. “What’s this?” He took hold of both wrists to see more bandages on the other hand. “You’re hurt?”

She’d gone still. “It’s nothing.” Her voice sounded croaky. “Blisters.”

“You didn’t wear the gloves the entire time?” he demanded, inspecting her skin.

“I did. But they slid around...” She didn’t finish because he’d lifted first one palm, and then the other, to his mouth.

He kissed their centers.

It was as if he saw the action from afar. The cynical, hard-souled Brett Walker stood outside his body while the Brett who wanted to protect Angelica from everything—hurt, cold, loneliness—soothed her with his mouth.

This close, she smelled like a beautiful, expensive mistake, and he just couldn’t give a shit about what would break in his inevitable fall.

Her arms lifted, and she cupped his face with her battered hands. Their eyes met. “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me again.”

There was no denying her. He bent his head, and placed his lips against hers. A sigh left her, her breath warm on his skin and then she opened her mouth and touched her tongue to his bottom lip.

His belly clenched. His cock went as hard as a fist.

He let her inside, let her sweet taste slide into him. His hands curled around her hips and her arms crossed behind his neck. It was a dance, of tongues, of desires, of want that had been building for weeks. Months.

Oh, yeah, objectify me, baby
, he thought, as her touch began to roam over him. He stood still for her, letting her acquaint herself with his back, his abs. When the heel of her palm brushed one nipple, he broke free to grab hold of his sweatshirt and yank it over his head.

Her gaze ran over him now, as hot as a touch.

He ran a finger around the neckline of the plain T-shirt covering her. “You?” he asked, his voice husky.

She dropped her hands to the hem.

“Let me,” he said, and drew the cotton away from her. Beneath it she wore a bra that was lacy and low cut. His breath caught in his chest as he took in the plump rise of flesh over the peach-colored cups. “This isn’t fair,” he muttered. “I’ll never be able to look at you in clothes again without thinking of what’s beneath them.”

“I want...” she started, then licked her lips. “I want to feel you against me.” Her arms went back and she unclasped the dangerous piece of lingerie. Then she shimmied her shoulders and the lace responded to gravity’s pull and slid along her skin. One cup caught on her upstanding nipple and then it lost its hold, too.

Finesse beyond him now, Brett bent his head to pull the gathered peak into his mouth. His eyes closing, he sucked, reveling in the scent of her, the weight of her breast in his other palm, the little sounds she made while he played there. Her fingertips sank into his scalp, and he muttered praise as he moved to the other nipple. His thumb strummed the wet one, and her nails dug deeper.

Delicious.

Lifting his head, he went for her mouth again, and they traded burning kisses as they explored each other’s bare flesh. He slid his fingers down the back of her jeans, delving beneath her panties to clutch one glorious cheek of her generous ass. “You’re amazing,” he whispered in her ear, pulling her into him.

She ground against his cock and pressed her nose to his pectoral muscle. Her tongue flickered against his nipple.

He groaned and he felt her answering smile. “I want you,” she whispered, as if it was a secret he didn’t already know.

“Good thing,” he said. “Because I’m about to objectify the hell out of you.”

She giggled and the sound sent Cynical Brett even further away. There was no wariness in him now as he continued kissing her while propelling her toward the bedroom. Their mouths ate at each other, greedy and urgent, as he swung her into the darkened room. There, he kicked shut the door and spun so Angelica’s back was against the hard surface and he could lean into her, rubbing their naked torsos together as the kiss went on and on. Wet. Deep. Deeper.

There was a creamier scent in the air, the sweet and spicy scent of female arousal. It quickened his blood and he felt himself go impossibly harder. He pulled his hand from her pants and went after the front clasp, needing to explore the center of her. Needing to open her up to him.

The snap popped, the zipper gave way, he moved to cup her.

And she screamed.

The sound was muffled by their mating kiss, but there was no denying its distress. Or the sudden frozen stiffness in her body.

Brett yanked his head away, and tried seeing her features in the blackness of the room. “Did I hurt you?” He pulled his hand from her underwear. “Angelica? Princess? What’s the matter?”

She was shaking, and not with lust.

Cursing silently, he fumbled for the light switch. When it blazed on overhead, she cried out again, throwing one arm over her eyes and the other over her bare breasts. “No! Turn it off!”