NFH 03 Checkmate (15 page)

"Look, it's really not a big deal. I can fix
this," Rory said as she reached out to screw with his fucked up
plans.

"No," Connor said firmly as he blocked her
good hand with one of his.

"Don't be a baby about this, Connor. It's
not a big deal. I remember what was in the fax. I can-"

"No," he said more firmly as he moved his
arm to re-block her when the stubborn woman tried to reach past his
hand and touch his computer.

With an annoyed sigh, she reached out once
again and tried to touch his computer, but he was ready for her. It
was an old move, but one that worked. He palmed her face and gently
pushed her back. As she tried to slap his hand away he focused on
his plans. Maybe he could readjust the storage unit next to it by a
foot and-

He heard her loud gasp of pain before he
registered the weak, yet hard, slap on his arm. He turned in time
to see her hug her broken arm to her chest and double over in
pain.

"Shit
!" he groaned, feeling like an asshole. He should have
realized that she'd forget about her arm when she got pissed
enough. Well, there was nothing he could do about it
now.

"Looks like it's time for bed," he announced
as he stood and scooped her up.

"Bastard," Rory choked out between
gasps.

"That wasn't very nice," he mused as he
carried her into the foyer.

"Asshole," of course was the reply.

"Words hurt, Rory," he said with a heartfelt
sigh as he carried her up the stairs. "Words hurt."

"I wish," she muttered as she turned her
face and buried it against his chest.

Since she was in pain he let it go and
focused on helping her on the bed. As soon as she was curled up on
her side and burying her face against the pillow he released her
and grabbed her bottle of pills.

"Open up for a happy pill," he said brightly
as he held one of the pills in front of her mouth.

She opened her eyes to glare at him as she
did just that. When she swallowed, he considered going back
downstairs and calling the office to have that fax emailed to him,
but one look at Rory had him crawling onto the bed next to her and
pulling her into his arms. He was actually rather pleased when she
didn't fight him. That is until she got her revenge for palming her
face.

"Ow! Goddammit, leave my nipple alone!" he
snapped, barely resisting the urge to rub it. The damn woman fought
dirty, but then again that's what he liked about her, he realized
with a smile. Rory James always managed to keep him on his toes and
kept it interesting. It was a rather nice quality in an enemy.

* * * *

"Why did you do it?" she demanded as she
yanked back the curtain.

"What in the hell is wrong with you?" Connor
asked as he grabbed the shower curtain and yanked it out of her
hand, but not before she got an eyeful.

The man had a very delicious backside and
she was tempted to pull the curtain back to get another glimpse,
but she needed to focus.

"Answer the damn question," she demanded,
waiting impatiently for him to finish his shower.

"How did you get in my house?" Connor asked
instead, making her roll her eyes. It really was a stupid question.
"I picked the lock. Now focus, why did you do it?"

Connor sighed heavily as he reached out and
snagged 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 for him was easy to ignore since her
hatred of him usually overshadowed the rather frightening
attraction. Since he'd been taking care of her and been nice to
her, she'd been having some difficulty ignoring how handsome he was
or how much she liked his body and his smile.

That was the reason she was here. She needed
to confront him and find out what sick and twisted thing could make
him do it. As soon as he admitted that he'd taken care of her to
screw with her head, she'd be able to go back to loathing him so
completely that she'd be unable to notice how hot he was or how
much she craved his touch. Then of course, she'd kick his ass for
making her think of him with anything other than revulsion.

"No," she said firmly as she moved to block
the doorway and his escape, but then rethought the plan since it
would most likely result in touching. So she marched into his room.
Once she'd put some space between them she motioned for him to get
on with his answer.

With a sigh, he 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 ass no matter how yummy it was, wouldn't help
her do that.

"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 the hell you took
care of me?" she 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 bedroom wearing only a pair of cargo khaki pants that
he 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 her eyes away, "that the better question is why weren't your
brothers here?"

"Because I was fine," she said, waving off
the comment in hopes that the man would just focus and answer her
damn question so that she could go back to hating everything about
him.

"Fine?" he repeated in disbelief, shaking
his head as if he couldn't quite believe what she just said. "You
weren't fine, Rory."

"Of course I was," she lied, but the truth
was, she was grateful for Connor's help. She would have hated
asking for her brother's 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 didn't know a damn thing about taking care of
anyone.

If she needed her car fixed, help moving, or
a million other things she wouldn't have hesitated in asking her
brothers for help, but nursemaids her brothers definitely were not.
They wouldn't have the first clue as to how to take care of
her.

It wasn't their fault. That's how they were
raised after all. Each and every one of them was 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 and 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 they would have rushed her 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 an end 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?" he asked, looking down at her as if
she were crazy. "You had a concussion, five bruised ribs and you
broke your goddamn arm, Rory. You weren't fine and you sure as hell
shouldn't have been left to fend for yourself," he snapped,
sounding truly angry, 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 were they thinking?"

"Well, they-" she started to defend them,
but the man apparently 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!" he snapped, getting in
her face and backing her up. She was so stunned by his outburst
that she didn't even realize what happened until her back hit the
wall and he was caging her in.

"Instead of coming over here and getting
pissed at me for something your family should have done, why don't
you try saying thank you, huh?" he demanded as he got right in her
face and before she could tell him to back 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 his neck he was pulling away,
jaw clenched and he looked even more pissed than before. Without a
word and before she could think beyond what just happened, he
grabbed her by her shoulders and steered her out of his room and
onto his patio where the cool morning air brought her to her
senses.

"Thank you!" she snapped, irritated with 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. That was wrong, so
very, very wrong.

"You're welcome!" he snapped back before
slamming the sliding glass door shut and irritating her even more.
Would it really kill him to let her have the last word, she
wondered as she made her way back to her patio.

"Stupid, toe curling kissing
bastard," she grumbled as she marched into her room, slamming the
sliding glass door shut behind her with her broken hand, which of
course started a five minute
owie
dance and a mad search for her bottle of pain
killers. By the time she popped a pill into her mouth she was no
closer to figuring out what Connor was up to than she had been when
she stormed over there. One way or the other she would figure out
what he was up to and then she would put an end to it.

Chapter 13

"Why the hell did I kiss her?" Connor
muttered as he leaned back against his truck.

Bunny barked his answer, tapering it off
with a growl of disapproval.

He sighed heavily even as he nodded his
agreement. "Exactly. Woman fuck with your head, buddy. Remember
that," he told the dog who'd given up his search for the perfect
spot to mark five minutes ago when Connor walked out of his house
to make sure that Connor didn't harass his master, or rather his
"mommy" since he'd heard the frustrating woman refer to herself
several times.

"It was a dumb move," he felt compelled to
say as he scrubbed his hands over his face, wishing like hell that
he could take the kiss back almost as much as he wished he'd never
let her go.

There was no denying that he wanted the
woman, had since he first hit puberty, but he'd always known that
there would never be anything between them. This strange
relationship of theirs pretty much guaranteed that. Even knowing
that there would never be anything between them hadn't stopped him
from thinking about her over the years.

There probably weren't many men in town that
hadn't fantasized about taking Rory James to bed. She was a
beautiful, desirable, sexy woman and he would have been concerned
if he hadn't been attracted to her. It didn't matter how badly he
wanted her, there would never be anything between them. There was
just too much history and animosity between them to take things
further, but apparently that hadn't stopped him from doing
something incredibly stupid like kissing her.

One minute he wanted to take her over his
knee and the next he wanted her in his bed and before he could stop
himself, he’d kissed her. He'd never been a big fan of kissing
before, it was one of those things he did to get a woman to spread,
but with Rory he could have happily kissed her all day. Her lips
were warm, soft, full and felt so damn good against his that it had
taken everything he had not to tilt his head and deepen the kiss.
He wanted to do that and more, but he knew that she would never let
it happen. Rory James didn't want him and the knowledge had knocked
some sense into him. It also hadn't hurt that she made no moves to
touch or kiss him back.

She was probably going to kick him in the
balls for that little mistake the next time she saw him which would
probably be any minute now, he thought as he glanced down at his
watch. It was almost six in the morning and if they didn't haul ass
they'd be late for work. Maybe he should do his poor balls a favor
and let her fend for herself, but just as quickly as the thought
flashed through his head he shoved it away. Her arm was broken and
she really had no business driving.

His eyes shifted to her Jeep and he
considered yanking a few cables out of the engine to take the
choice out of her hands, but knowing Rory, she probably had some
backups in the garage somewhere. Then again, she might have called
for one of her brothers to pick her up, he realized as he shot a
look down both ends of the quiet street. When he didn't spot
anything he settled back against his truck door and waited.