Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series) (14 page)

She moved to the door and bent to fit the key to the lock.
She still wore a t-shirt knotted up around her waist. But the back of the shirt rode up from the waistband of the jeans she'd changed into--the cheap jeans she'd bought at The Bargain Mart. Correction, the jeans
he'd
bought for her. They rode low on her back as she bent, rode low and buckled away from her skin.

He had no business following the path of her spine into that
space below her waistband. But something just above the edge of her panty line caught his eye. A tramp stamp? It was a tattoo of a rose. Damned if he didn't want to ease the jeans down her hips and trace each bright red petal with a fingertip.

"Unusually wide for how old it is," she said, straightening.

"What?" he asked, blinking.

She indicated the door she'd swung open.
"The door. It's wider than was normally used in a house of this age."

"Good," he muttered.
"That's one less we have to widen to meet code."

"And to accommodate wheelchairs."
She turned and scanned the wraparound porch. "The place could be ramped easily without losing the aesthetic appeal of the original design."

"You weren't all that interested in aesthetics when you were renovating The Castle."
He edged past her into the house. She followed.

"The hell I wasn't."

"You knocked a wall out between two bedrooms to make a master suite and turned the nursery into a walk-in closet," he argued, testing the floorboards beneath his feet for spongy spots.

"That had nothing to do with aesthetics.
That was about making an old house more attractive to today's home buyer," Tess countered, her gaze traveling along the seams where the walls and ceiling met, no doubt checking for corners out of square.

"You could have maintained the integrity of the house and still sold it," he
said, stroking the wide woodwork framing the archway between front room and dining area, appreciating its solidness.

"Maybe I didn't have
8time to wait around for the kind of buyer who'd appreciate small, cozy rooms." She stepped into the dining room and faced him. "Besides, it wasn't your house and, therefore, not your choice to make."

She stood there in front of him,
hands on her hips and chin defiantly cocked. He could point out that the privilege of money afforded people a lot more choices. But something in her eyes didn't match her pose. Something in their deep brown depths hinted of panic. Maybe she wasn't as solvent as he'd thought.

"You're right," he said.
"It isn't my house."

He moved past her into the kitchen.
When she followed him, he asked, "Don't you have something to inspect?"

"I can do my walk through with you."

"Swell."

He opened the cabinet under the sink and inspected the plumbing.
It took him longer than it should have because his attention kept wandering around the kitchen with the sound of Tess' footsteps.

"So you were a ski jumper," she said from across the room.

"I was a ski instructor who did some ski jumping for the thrill of it when I was young and dumb." He rolled onto his back in the confining space under the sink and shined his flashlight at the joints where sink and plumbing met.

"And where did you do all that?" she asked from another location in the kitchen.

"At a ski hill."

"No kidding."

He heard a cupboard door slam shut.

"Was it in Colorado?"
Thump went another cupboard door.

"No."

"Lake Placid? Sun Valley? Banff?" Thump. Thump. Thump.

"No, no, and no."

"Can we at least narrow it down to the North American continent?"

Her voice was
getting closer. He glanced down the length of his legs and spied hers beside his. Stubborn and persistent. The woman was not going to stop.

"Europe," he said.
"I was a ski instructor at a number of European resorts."

"Europe, huh?
There're some big hills over there. I'm impressed."

"Big hills.
Big resorts. You got it."

"You must have been a good skier."

"Very good."

"
How'd you wind up working abroad?"

He slid out from under the sink, searching her face for
sarcasm. All he found was genuine curiosity.

"My parents were in the diplomatic corps," he
said and climbed to his feet.

"Diplomatic corps
." She whistled.

"Don't get too impressed."
He opened the back door and tested the porch boards. "They were support staff."

"Must have been an interesting life."

He smiled to himself. "Yeah. It was interesting."

"But you quit ski jumping," she prodded.
"Why?"

His
expression turned serious. "It was the safe thing to do. The responsible thing. We should check out the attic."

In the largest of the upstairs rooms,
Roman nudged aside the small trap door in the ceiling of the closet. He stared into the darkness beyond the opening. "You didn't happen to notice a ladder or stool during our tour of the house, did you?"

Tess edged into the closet beside him, letting the ratty drape that served as a door fall into place behind her.
"Not so much as a chair."

"You're never going to boost me up through that," he said.

"Guess that means I'm elected," she said. "Thread those fingers together and give me a lift, St. John."

He gave her a glum look.

"You don't doubt that I can inspect that attic as well as you, do you?"

"No, Princess.
I'm sure you're every bit as capable as I am at spotting dry rot and stress problems."
I just don't relish getting close enough to you to hoist you into the attic
.

Threading his fingers together, he squatted and offered Tess a foothold.
She placed her foot in his hands. Though she wore tennis shoes, he could remember what her bare arch had felt like against his palm.

She placed her hands on his shoulders, reminding him
of the soft touch of her fingers when she had been exploring him. If he lifted his head right now, he could bury his face between her breasts.

"Your back seize up on you or something, St. John?"

"Just waiting for you to give me the go ahead," he grumbled.

"Fine.
I'm re--"

He rose, launching her upward.
She shrieked.

As her head disappeared into the attic, he called up to her, "I hope you're not squeamish about bats."

Sitting on the lip of the opening, she peered down at him. "You'd like it if I was, wouldn't you?"

"A guy can dream."

"Just give me the flashlight, St. John."

He handed the light up to her.
She pulled her legs up into the attic.

"And watch where you step," he shouted up at her.
"I've got enough to do with this place without having to patch ceilings."

"Get lost," she yelled back.

"Remember, I'm the only one here who can help you down from there."

Silence answered.
He waited a minute, then, "What's it look like up there?"

"Dark."

"Funny. What else?"

"So far no water stains.
No rot."

A little while later he called again, "Find anything, yet?"

"Not so much as a bat dropping," she called from the depths of the attic. "Hope you're not too disappointed."

The minutes stretched.
He tried to make himself wait. But she could be in trouble up there. "You still alive up there?"

Her head appeared in the opening.
"If you don't stop interrupting me, St. John, I'm never going to get this inspection done."

"Excuse me, Your Highness, for being concerned about your well-being."

"Isn't there something else you can occupy yourself with?"

"Fine.
Don't blame me if there's no one here to help you down when you're ready."

Roman gave the second floor a quick inspection.
When he returned to the master bedroom, Tess' legs were dangling from the attic opening. He moved into the closet and caught her by the hips. She screamed and came plummeting down on top of him, the flashlight smacking him in the head. He stumbled backwards out of the closet, taking the curtained door, curtain rod, and Tess to the floor with him. Of course Tess was on top of him.

She
squirmed, her backside in perfect alignment with his crotch. "Ow," he protested. "You didn't have to panic. I had you."

"I didn't panic.
I had everything under control until you grabbed me and startled me."

"So this is my fault, too?"

She struggled to dislodge them from curtain and rod. He pushed at her derriere.

"Quit manhandling me," she grumbled.
"I can get up on my own."

"Then do it."

#

Roman strode up to Brody's open window.
"You had to come and check her out, didn't you?"

"You pledged abstinence until Miss Right came along.
Then you beat my door down in the middle of the night looking for condoms. You bet I wanted to see the woman you've chosen to spend the rest of your life."

"It's not her."

"Could have fooled me."

"She's a royal pain in the ass."

"A royal knockout you want bad, you mean." Brody glanced up at the house. "So, where is the royal pain?"

"Inspecting the crawl space under the house."

"By herself?"

"
I only had the one flashlight and, get this; she said she wouldn't trust the job to a contractor, that she needed to inspect the foundation for herself. I also had to trust her to check out the attic for me."

"Let me get this straight.
She's crawling around the dirt under the house while you're standing out here?"

"I offered."

"And you sent
her
into the attic to do that dirty work as well."

"There was no ladder and she sure as hell couldn't hoist me up."

Brody snorted. "What the hell happened the other night?"

Roman slumped against the fender of the truck.
"Nothing."

Brody laughed.

"It isn't funny," Roman said. "She changed her mind."

"And you didn't."

"I would have if I'd been thinking straight. Bad idea, her and me."

"So, you're mad because she figured that out first?"

"I'm mad because I'm a damned sucker. I let her move in because I felt responsible. I invited her back because I felt sorry for her. Heck, I even cleaned out her fridge for her. And all she does is complain. She's driving me crazy."

"So, seduce her
again."

An image of him and Tess naked on
his guestroom floor slammed through Roman. He frowned at the ground. "I wasn't the one doing the seducing."

"Aaah.
She tested your abstain-until-Miss-Right comes along, and you failed. That's what you're mad about."

"I'm not mad," Roman insisted.

"That's right. You're frustrated. All that bread." Brody laughed.

"I'm glad you're having fun
at my expense," Roman grumbled.

"If you're frustrated, do a little trolling in the local bars.
You'll have no trouble picking up something to relieve that pressure built up in your pants."

"Oh
, yeah. And when I bring my pressure reliever home for the night, how do you propose I explain Her Royal Pain?"

"I could take her off your hands
for a night. I'm not without my charms."

Roman scowled at Brody.
"You've done enough."

Brody laughed again.

"What's so funny?"

"You
are, man. You're jealous."

"Go to hell."

"You want her so bad, you can't see straight."

"I'll show you how straight I can see.
Have at her. Seduce her."

"Won't work."

"Why not?"

"Because
, in spite of my charms, the gal has eyes only for you. Somewhere in that thick skull of yours, you know it, or you wouldn't have offered me a shot at her."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"When we were talking about ski jumping, she didn't once ask me how I managed that while in a wheelchair."