Blame It on the Bikini(28)

‘Brad?’

A stage whisper that he ignored. He counted his breathing, trying to keep it deep and regular.

She touched his shoulder, and he braced to stop the flinch as her fingertips stroked. She had a soft touch, but not shy. He made the counting in his head louder so he wouldn’t smile. The thing she needed most right now was sleep, not an hour getting physical with him.

‘Brad?’

He was asleep; hadn’t she got that already?

She sighed. The edge of disappointment nearly broke his resolve. He’d make it up to her tomorrow. He’d disable her alarm and let her sleep late. Then he’d wake her slow—morning sex was the way to start the day, and they’d never yet managed it in any kind of leisurely fashion. And Christmas morning meant the café would be closed.

She walked a couple of paces away. He carefully opened his eyes and saw her back was to him. He could see the weariness in her shoulders, in the way she rubbed her forehead as if there was a residual ache there before she began to undress. He wished she wouldn’t work as hard as she did. He wished she’d damn well let him help her out. She could drop one of her jobs; he’d see to it that she didn’t starve.

He was so busy thinking he didn’t notice that she’d turned around. Or that he was supposed to be out like a light.

‘You’re awake.’

He snapped his eyes shut but he knew it was too late.

‘Brad!’

Busted. ‘I was asleep.’

‘You were pretending to be asleep!’ She sounded outraged. ‘Why were you pretending to be asleep?’ She supplied the answer before he could even open his mouth. ‘You didn’t want to have to perform tonight? You’re lying there feigning sleep like some unfulfilled spouse trying to avoid duty sex?’

‘Mya—’

‘Are you bored already?’

It was the hurt behind the indignance that got him moving. He shot out of bed. ‘Does it look like I’m bored?’

His erection was so hard it hurt, his skin pulled tighter than ever before. All he wanted to do was bury himself deep in her heat and find the release. He wanted those sensations that only she could give, to steal away all the thoughts that tormented him, to be as close as they’d been last night with nothing between them.

‘If you didn’t want me to come tonight, all you had to do is tell me.’ She ignored his evidential display.

‘I want you to come.’ And yes, he meant that in the teenage double-entendre way.

‘Then what are you doing pretending you’re asleep?’ Arms folded, foot tapping, she waited.

He sighed. He was a condemned man. His answer would annoy her but she wouldn’t let him get away with not explaining himself to her. ‘I thought you needed some sleep.’

Her jaw dropped.

‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘You’re exhausted.’

‘The shadows beneath my eyes are a turn-off, is that it?’ she queried—not hiding the hint of hurt. ‘You’re not doing a lot for my ego here.’

‘Mya,’ he said coaxingly and reached for her.

She pulled back out of reach. Totally put out. ‘I work two jobs and study on top of that, so exhaustion is normal. I’m sorry if I can’t live up to the high-gloss appearance of your usual lovers. Maybe you need to stick to ladies of leisure.’

‘Mya.’ He tried to laugh it off, gesturing at his erection. ‘It’s perfectly clear your appearance is still lethal for me.’

She wasn’t buying it. ‘You can’t tell me you didn’t pull some all-nighters when you were studying. It’s normal student behaviour.’

‘Not every assignment, I didn’t.’

‘Well, bully for you for being more organised than me.’

‘No one can be more organised than you. Your problem is that not only are you studying, you’re working two jobs. That’s not a normal workload.’

‘In my world it happens all the time. You do what you have to do.’

‘Yeah, but you don’t have to do that much.’

‘I do if I need to eat.’

‘Why not let me help you?’

She whirled away from him. ‘You don’t need to help me. All I want from you is—’

‘Yeah, okay. I got it.’ He didn’t want to hear what little she wanted from him. He’d made the bed. But now the bed wasn’t enough for him.

What was wrong with him? He’d never turned down sex. Ever. If a pretty woman was offering, he was on it. Easy come, easy go and a good time had by both.

She’d wanted to ravish him, and he’d lain there like a log. And ironically harder than a piece of petrified wood. He’d definitely come down with some kind of mind-altering fever. And now she was halfway down the hallway again.

‘You’re not leaving,’ he stated, striding after her.

‘I’m not staying where I’m not wanted.’

‘You’re wanted. You know you’re wanted. All you have to do is look at me to know you’re wanted.’

‘That’s just a normal state of being for you.’

White-hot fury ripped through him because this was not normal for him.

She turned in time to read his expression and suddenly shook her head. ‘Don’t make this complicated.’ She kept backing up the hallway. ‘I think I’ll spend tonight at my place. Catch up on my beauty sleep.’ A pointed look. ‘And I need to get to my parents’ place early in the morning. We can get together next week.’

He caught up to her in a couple of quick strides. He pulled her against him and kissed her until she was panting. And so was he.

‘You couldn’t look more beautiful than you do right now,’ he said.

When her attention was riveted on him. When desire filled her eyes and blood pounded in her lips and she was seconds off breathing his name.

But that hurt look in her eyes grew—dimming that light. ‘You just don’t like me walking out on you right now. But you started it.’

‘What I don’t like is how hard you’re working. Why not work smarter instead of harder?’

‘What is that piece of management-mag speak supposed to mean?’

‘Get just one job. A better job. Get an internship at a firm.’

She shook her head.

‘You could clerk for me over the summer.’ It was the worst thing to suggest; he knew it before he’d even opened his mouth but he couldn’t stop the words.

‘I’m not a charity case. I’m tired of charity. I want to do it myself. I want to deserve it myself.’

‘You do deserve it,’ he argued, his volume lifting along with his frustration. ‘You’re super smart. You’ve got amazing grades. Any firm would want you.’

‘You only do because of this … connection,’ she said. ‘It’s the sexual equivalent of the old boys’ network. Only because you know me. I’d rather send my CV out and get a job on my own merit.’

‘Okay, fine. Will you send your CV to my firm?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So you’re doing the opposite. Because we do know each other, you won’t work with me?’

‘We couldn’t. I couldn’t.’

‘Why not? We’d make a great team.’

She just stared at him.

‘Everybody makes connections, Mya,’ he said, his body clenched with frustration. Wanting to shake sense into her some way or another and knowing already that he was doomed to failure. She was so damn obstinate. ‘That’s why they have networking groups. Young lawyers, young farmers, young fashion designers. People have mentors. It’s normal.’

‘You set up on your own,’ she argued. ‘You turned your back on any help your father could offer.’

He drew a hard breath. ‘You know I had my reasons for that. And I still had help. I might have turned my back on my father’s help, but I still had his name.’ He sighed. ‘And to be honest I know that helped. It helped that I had money.’

‘It helped more that you’d won all the prizes in your year at university. Your own merit, Brad. I want to do the same.’

‘I still had help,’ he ground out through his teeth, hating to have to admit it, but knowing it was the truth.

‘Well, I’ll get my lecturer to write a reference or something.’

‘So it’s just me you won’t accept help from?’

‘I’m not using our personal relationship for professional gain.’

‘So we have a relationship.’ He pounced.

‘No,’ she denied instantly, swallowing hard. ‘This is a fling. Stress relief.’ Mya stared at him in all his naked glory. What was the man thinking? Why was he changing the rules—why was he offering for her to work with him? As if that were possible? What did he think would happen when he decided he’d had enough of sleeping with her? No way could she take this from him.