AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I’m happy to dig the last couple of holes for the side fence.’ Alex slammed the door.
Lorenzo looked up from where he stood in the back of the truck, tossing out implements. ‘You got energy to burn?’
‘And then some.’
Dani stepped out of the car. OK, what was her role here?
‘You mind raking the leaves, Dani?’ Alex glanced over from where he was already picking up a spade.
‘Sure.’ She wasn’t work-shy. Good thing too because it took her over an hour to rake up all the leaves from the paths and heap them into the green waste wheelie bins. Then she swept and pulled a few weeds. By then she was burning to make a cutting comment or two because this wasn’t exactly her idea of Saturday-morning fun.
‘Where are the cameras?’ She stood alongside the fence line Alex was digging the post holes for. ‘Don’t you want your charity bit to be recorded for publicity?’
‘This is just a little job we’re doing on the quiet. We save the cameras for the big set pieces like the dinner the other night.’ Alex leaned on the spade and drawled, ‘When we’re looking our handsomest.’
Dani could argue that one. Sure, he was to die for in a tux, but in faded old jeans and a tee shirt that was now clinging to his sweaty torso, well, hell. Officially it might be autumn, but as far as she was concerned it was hotter than Hades.
He was obviously used to a bit of physical work—could handle a spade and a wheelbarrow. But she couldn’t sit here and watch him all day lugging wood and digging and looking way too manly. And it looked as if they were going to be doing this all day. Lorenzo had put up the horizontals on the front fence—where the posts had already been concreted in.
She picked up the bag of nails and interrupted Alex again. ‘Give me a hammer.’
‘Pardon?’
‘A hammer.’
‘I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.’ Alex stood back from his work. ‘You’ve got such precious fingers, very little thumbs.’
‘Lucky, aren’t I? Means they’re easy to miss,’ she said smartly. ‘What makes you think a girl can’t hammer in a few nails?’
She’d done all the DIY in the little flat her mother and she had rented—well, as much of it as she could without doing worse damage. Plumbing was beyond her, but nailing up a few fence palings was a cinch. She went to the end of the fence and got started.
Alex had dug the last of the holes for the back fence and he and Lorenzo concreted the poles in. They’d obviously worked together a lot. And she wasn’t noticing how good Alex looked grubby.
Finally they stopped for food. Alex magicked a hamper from in the boot of his car. Dani stared at the yummy pottles he was finding forks for.
He noticed her salivating, and his grin was too cocky. ‘I know a great deli.’
‘How come you two are so good at this?’
‘Summers working on a farm. Fence post after fence post.’ Alex handed her a pottle of pasta salad and a fork.
He’d spent his summers working? She was pleasantly surprised—would have thought a richer-than-rich playboy prince like him would have been off gallivanting round the globe every semester break. She looked at the perfectly straight fence posts. Nope, he was definitely experienced with this.
As soon as she filled the pit that was her stomach she turned her back and got on with her section. Banging in the nails was a rewarding way to burn off some of her energy. It was accruing again, in giant tubfuls—the desire to be with him.
‘What makes you so good at this?’
She jumped. He was standing right beside her, tracing his finger along the palings where she’d hammered the nails in a neat row.
‘Necessity.’
His brows lifted. ‘Is there nothing you can’t do all on your own, Dani?’
‘Not a thing.’ She slung the hammer back into the tool box, glanced up to see a frown on his face. ‘What?’
He brushed the backs of his fingers along her jaw, slid them up to sweep that annoying bit of fringe back. ‘Are you sure about that?’
His tone was different—loaded with meaning. He wasn’t teasing her. It wasn’t a reference to the way he’d played with her in bed last night. His eyes held none of that heat; instead it was all seriousness, all concern.
Eli.
Her heart started thundering. If she asked Alex to help, it would happen. He would find him. And wasn’t that what she wanted more than anything in the world? Suddenly she was scared. Really, really scared of what she might find. And too scared not to search. She watched, distracted, as Alex and Lorenzo loaded the rest of the gear on the truck, then all three stood for a moment and admired the pristine fence.
Alex shot Lorenzo a look. ‘Tempted?’
‘Like you wouldn’t believe.’
Alex laughed. ‘Bad boy. Come back for a drink instead.’
Dani saw Lorenzo glance from Alex to her and then back to Alex. ‘Not today, thanks.’
Once they were in the car she just had to ask. ‘What was he tempted to do?’
Alex grinned. ‘Renz liked to tag as a teen.’
‘Graffiti?’ Dani’s brows lifted. ‘Did you help him get on the straight and narrow?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Alex laughed. ‘I got him the paint.’
He disappeared upstairs when they got home. Dani’s body had seized up in the car; it was all she could do to hobble to the kitchen. She got ice-cold water from the fridge and carefully sat on a stool.
‘Tired?’
Warm fingers slid beneath her tee shirt and walked up her spine.
‘Yes.’
‘Come on.’ He sounded husky.
Heaven help her, she thought she might be too tired even to manage that. He chuckled and picked her up, easily loping up the stairs with her. He went straight through his bedroom to the en-suite bathroom adjacent to it.
‘Oh.’ She blinked.
There were candles lit everywhere—tons of them, all different sizes, but all that gorgeous deep red, and her favourite berrylicious scent. Out of the window the autumnal sky was closing in, a blue-grey that darkened with every beat of her heart.
‘Alex…’ She looked up at him, registered his slightly smug smile, and his arms tightened. She put on a pout and shook her head. ‘Don’t think this is going to get you any extra points.’
‘I don’t need any more points.’ He grinned and then tipped her into the bath, clothes and all. She went right under and emerged with a splutter, sending fluffy white bubbles everywhere. She knelt up and looked at him, watched as he yanked his shirt off his head. Sinking back into the delicious, almost-too-hot water, she melted as he scuffed off his jeans. Heaven.
He laughed as she sighed, stepped into the bath behind her. Oh, yes. He didn’t need any more points. She turned to face him and he pulled her close, the tips of his fingers making patterns with the bubbles on her skin. ‘Wet tee shirt.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘Nice.’
‘You’re a gentleman and a rogue, Alex Carlisle.’
He blew some of the bubbles from her arm. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You do this—’ she waved a froth-covered hand at the flickering candles that cast a warm glow in the room ‘—set it up so beautifully and then you dunk me in fully clothed.’
He leaned back, water streaming over his bronzed body emphasising the lean, hard muscles, and his brows flicked up and down. ‘Irresistible impulse.’
‘Succumb to them often, do you?’
‘Around you. Yes.’
She gazed at him, experiencing a rather irresistible impulse of her own as his silky-smooth words washed over her with that undertone of laughter as the chaser.
Utterly irresistible.
She rose to her knees, leant forward and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’
Lifting far enough away to focus, she saw a curious expression in his eyes.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ he murmured.
‘You remembered the candle from the hostel.’
He nodded.
‘You’re very good with details.’
The curve of his mouth deepened.
She leant closer to him again, her voice merely a hot breath by his ear. ‘What else are you good at?’
He inclined his head just that touch so his faintly stubbled jaw brushed her cheek. ‘You sure you want to find out?’
‘Absolutely.’
