LOL: Laugh Out Loud (After Oscar, #2)(9)

When I finally paused long enough to suck in a breath, I realized he was staring at me with his dark stubbled jaw on the floor. He slowly closed his mouth and swallowed.

“I’m sorry. Remind me of your name again?”

That was when my hunger and stress from the past couple of days caught up to me and I sank like a dirty lump onto his pristine hardwood floors in a dead faint.





4





Roman





City Courier Claims Equine Enters Burke Brownstone



I poked at the guy with my bare toes.

“Um, sir? You… you seem to have lost your feet, there.”

He didn’t move. Shit, I was going to have to touch him. Which was fine, except he was a little bit filthy. And by that I meant a lot bit.

I squatted down and reached for his neck, easily finding his pulse under his dirty-blond scruff. As I came closer to him, I noticed smudges of dirt in his skin and the recognizable scent of hay and the outdoors. Had he been sleeping with his horse?

“Carriage driver man,” I said, nudging him gently now that I knew his heart was still beating. His coat was worn and stained, and his boots were dirty enough I should have asked for him to remove them downstairs.

But the man under the dirty and worn clothes was unexpected—at odds with his outward appearance. He had fine features and a delicate, youthful complexion. That surprised me considering he spent all day in the sun driving his carriage through the park. I would have thought he’d have sun-and wind-roughened skin.

Maybe he hadn’t been doing the job very long. Or maybe he was diligent about applying sunscreen.

“Scotty,” he mumbled.

“No. I’m Roman. Roman Burke,” I corrected before remembering Scotty was the name the cops had used for the carriage driver.

His eyes opened and then narrowed, but not before I noticed how blue they were. “I know who you are.” His snappish tone caused me to wince.

“Shit, sorry. You meant that you’re Scotty. Right. I remember that now.”

His nostrils flared. I wasn’t really helping things by babbling. “I think the first order of business is to get you some food. Let me help you to the table.” I reached under his back and helped him up, catching another whiff of horse with an underlying scent of a man in need of a shower. It wasn’t really unpleasant, just… wrong, somehow, as if he was normally quite put together.

As I gripped one of his hands, I realized I remembered these same long, slender fingers from that day in the carriage. I’d noticed them holding the reins gracefully since it had been so different from how I would have clutched at them for dear life. His nails were meticulously clean and trimmed despite the outward appearance of the rest of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, adding more apologies to the general air of remorse in the room. “I haven’t really eaten.”

I frowned. I didn’t like hearing that. “In how long?”

He shrugged, not quite meeting my eyes. “Since yesterday morning maybe? Or the night before?”

He hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours? No wonder he was light-headed. “Why?”

He glared at me. “Because I got fucking fired after an asshole forced me to drive my carriage through Manhattan, and I had to spend all my fucking savings on keeping my horse fed and stabled while I tried to find another job.”

Oh.

After mumbling yet another apology while helping him settle on a stool at the center island, I returned to the stove to figure out what to cook for him. Wait. He’d said he didn’t care for eggs. “You like pancakes?”

Scotty’s head came up, and I was struck again by his clear blue eyes. I didn’t remember those from the carriage ride day. But then again I hadn’t really been in the best mental state at the time.

He smiled. “Are there people who don’t like pancakes?”

He had a point. I pulled a package of strawberries from the fridge and rinsed them under the tap before placing them in a bowl in front of Scotty along with a cup of coffee and the fixings for it. “Get started with this,” I told him.

He wolfed down the fruit and coffee before I even had the pancake batter mixed. I paused to refill his mug before returning to the stove and pouring out the first batch. He chucked in a bunch of cream and sugar before starting on it like it was his first cup. When the first batch of pancakes was ready, I put a fat stack in front of him with butter and syrup.

“Thanks, man. I really appreciate it,” he said before digging in. He swallowed his first bite and hummed in appreciation. I tried not to notice the drop of syrup clinging to his bottom lip. Or to think about how badly I wanted to lean across the counter and lick it off. How sweet his mouth would taste right now, a mixture of strawberries and butter and sugar and coffee.

I cleared my throat and turned back to the stove, trying to get my thoughts under control. The man was a stranger, I reminded myself. And he literally smelled like a barn.

And he was sweet and funny and adorable and had the kind of body that I would love to—

No. I would not allow my thoughts to go there. Scotty was a complication. A rather huge one given the horse that was doing god knew what in my entry downstairs. Not to mention whatever photos the paparazzi had gotten of them coming into my house. I was surprised I hadn’t already gotten a call from Oscar or my agent.