Superb and Sexy (Sky High Air #3)(13)

Maddie kept looking at Brody.

He looked back. Her eyes were cool, her head high. Her hair fell in an intriguing curtain of glossy, perfect silk behind her shoulders, except for one strand that brushed her creamy skin at her collarbone, and as mesmerizing as that was, it had nothing on where the ends landed—at her breasts, covered only in that sports bra. When she tossed the strands back, he saw that her nipples had hardened.

He took a careful breath. And then another. Because he had no business noticing her breasts with her nipples poking at the material, or otherwise, and to remind him of that, he looked at her bullet and surgery scar, the one that ripped at his heart. Yeah, that was a good way to put things in perspective.

“Brody.”

He lifted his gaze.

“Okay, there’s no PT waiting for a ride. But there is a package at the post office. I—we need that package. Clearly, I’m not going to get rid of you, so—”

“Damn right.”

“So maybe you could go get the package for us.”

“Sure. If you come with me.”

She sighed. “Brody—”

“You come with me. That’s the deal.”

She frowned. “I’d have thought at the word husband, you’d be running for the hills.”

That was just true enough that he really couldn’t take offense. “How about we put aside all my many faults and concentrate on you for a minute?”

“Are you sure?” she said. “Because there are so many faults to pick from that we could discuss.”

He dragged a hand over his face in frustration and decided she was still trying to distract him. Only she didn’t get it. It wasn’t going to work. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing that concerns you.”

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure being the husband concerns me.”

She simply turned away from him, ignoring him completely but giving him a nice view of her nearly bare back. Her spine was ramrod straight, her shoulders proud.

Yeah, there was the Maddie he knew, the take charge, capable woman. At Sky High, she’d intimidated the hell out of him with all her elegance, sophistication, all that easy class that screamed Don’t-Touch.

Nothing much had changed.

But he still wasn’t leaving.





Chapter 6


C ould this day have gotten any worse? Maddie wondered as Brody followed her through the house. She passed through the laundry room where Leena had some of her bras hanging up to dry. She ducked beneath them, but even when he ducked, Brody managed to hit a hanger. A black, lacy panty fell to the floor.

He bent and picked it up, the thing looking incredibly small and feminine in his hands.

With a sound that she meant to be annoyance but might have been something else entirely, she snatched it from him, stretching to hang it back up. As she moved, she felt him at her back. She always felt him, but more today than she ever had before.

She’d missed him.

Hell of an admission.

He was eyeing the rest of the drying lingerie, not saying a word but clearly thinking plenty. “My sister’s,” she said and walked on.

He followed. Of course, he followed.

She couldn’t shake him, and she sure as hell hadn’t managed to distract him either. She was definitely losing her touch. Stopping in the front hall, she looked pointedly at the door. He set a big, warm hand on the small of her back until she turned and looked at him.

She got that she’d inadvertently triggered all of his alpha male, drag-his-knuckles-on-the-ground tendencies. It was all over his face, in the hard angles of his jaw, in the set lines of his mouth, in the way his eyes were so intense and stormy and utterly focused on her.

He knew her far better than she’d imagined. Though how that was possible, what with him always doing his damnedest to keep his distance from her at work…

But she’d obsess about that later.

Much later.

She had bigger issues at the moment. Life and death issues. Leena’s. Hers.

And now his.

Because yes, she’d heard Rick’s message loud and clear. Her Uncle Rick expected Leena back on Stone Cay, and if she didn’t go, there’d be trouble.

There’d be problems.

There’d be blood. “Brody.”

“Maddie,” he said with shocking calm. A furious calm, if she wasn’t mistaken, but still.

“I’m on leave of absence,” she reminded him, not telling him that it looked like it might be permanent. Hell, she could hardly think it, much less say it out loud. “As in, I’m not currently working for you. So what’s happening in my life is none of your business.”

“That might have been true a few minutes ago. But now we’re related.”

“Stop it.”

“No, you stop it.” Yes, definitely fury. “What the hell is this all about, Maddie? Who was that * on the phone?”

She wasn’t moved by much, but him standing there in that tall, muscled package, wrapped by all that raw and dangerous male beauty made her swallow hard. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

Try him? That had been her greatest fantasy up until Leena had shown up and Maddie’s entire world of glass had shattered. Before that, she’d wanted to try him every which way possible, but that was going to be just a fantasy now, a remote one. She reached for the front door, but before she could open it, he placed his hand on the wood, effortlessly holding it closed above her head.