Playing Dirty (Risky Business, #2)(40)

“I can’t eat all that,” I protested.

“Sure you can,” he said, grabbing another plate for himself. He’d discarded his jacket and loosened his tie, but still looked incongruous taking a bite of his own slice. Setting down the plate, he went into the kitchen.

I watched him, wondering if I should daintily nibble on my pizza or scarf it down like I wanted to. Considering how much my stomach was growling, I decided I didn’t really care if it was ladylike or not and took a huge bite. My eyes slid shut.

Heaven. Pure heaven.

I had a whole slice gone and was halfway through round two when Parker returned, carrying two wineglasses and an open bottle of red. He poured himself a whole glass and me half before handing it to me.

“Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass against mine.

I’d slowed down by the time I got to the third slice, and my toes caught my eye. “Crap,” I mumbled around pizza.

“What?”

“The asphalt scraped my polish,” I explained, wiggling my toes so he could see what I was talking about. “Now I have to redo them.”

“You’re not going to be able to bend enough to paint your toes,” Parker said, taking his fourth slice.

Well, shit. I hadn’t thought of that, but he was right. I couldn’t move off the couch without groaning. No way could I paint my toes. I’d just have to go around with them looking awful.

For some reason, this was the thing that broke me. Not the slice in the shoulder, not the scrapes and bruises from last night, not even the stitches. I was bawling because I couldn’t paint my toes.

Parker took the glass out of my hand and the plate from my lap. I covered my face with my hands, embarrassed beyond belief that I was sobbing in front of him. He had to think I was insane.

But he didn’t say anything, just put his arm around me and pulled me into him until my head rested against his chest in the crook of his neck and shoulder. He rubbed my back as I cried.

I didn’t know if it was because the impending terror of seeing that truck had shaken me so much or what, but it seemed really hard to let this incident go. Months ago, Viktor Rowan had held a plastic bag over my head, nearly suffocating me, and that had been pretty damn scary. Or maybe it was that I’d had one too many near-death experiences in too short a span of time. Whatever the reason, it took several minutes for me to calm down.

Finally, when my tears had subsided and I was doing the weird hiccup thing you did after crying too hard, Parker said, “If you wanted a mani/pedi, all you had to do was ask.”

A bubble of laughter escaped, in spite of the crying jag. He handed me a tissue and I wiped my eyes.

“So where’s your polish?”

I waved his question aside. “I’m fine. It’s just one of those things.”

“No. You always have your toes painted. It’ll help you feel more normal, more in control. Just tell me where your stuff is. In the bathroom? Your bedroom?” He was already heading down the hallway.

“Parker,” I called. “Really, it’s fine …” But he’d disappeared into the bathroom. Oh geez, if he found my polish …

“Wow.”

I cringed. Yep. He’d found it all right.

I liked nail polish. A lot. The last time I’d counted, I’d had over fifty bottles, and that had been at Christmas, nearly a year ago. I’d probably added twenty more in the time since.

Parker poked his head out the door. “You’re going to have to help me out. What color?”

Like I was going to have him dig out a specific color. Please. They were organized by mood. Colors that made me happy, colors that made me feel sexy, colors to wear when I was feeling depressed, colors specific for certain holidays … no way could I explain that to him. “Um, whatever. You choose.”

He returned bearing polish remover, cotton balls, and two bottles. “Okay,” he said, sitting down again. “I have …” He looked at the bottom of one bottle. “Tasmanian Devil Made Me Do It.” He looked at the other bottle. “And … A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find.” Glancing at me, he asked, “Which?”

I shrugged, unable to stop a smile. It was surreal, Parker eating pizza on my couch and picking out polish for my toes. Maybe I should have a near-death experience every day, if this was how Parker reacted.

He reached for my leg and propped it on his thigh so he could get to my toes, then began assiduously removing the scraped remains of I Don’t Give a Rotterdam. His tie caught my eye and before I could think twice, I reached for it, loosening the knot and sliding the length of silk from underneath his collar. He paused while I did this, looking at me instead of my toes, and the air grew charged between us.

“I don’t want you to get anything on your tie,” I blurted, deliberately not following the path my mind was leading, where I was taking more off him than his tie. “Your dry cleaner hates me enough as it is.”

Parker’s lips twitched, then he returned to his work, removing the polish from one set of toes, then the other before choosing A Good Man-darin Is Hard to Find. I wondered if he knew that was the same polish I’d worn when I’d interviewed for the job as his assistant. Probably not. It wasn’t like men noticed that sort of thing.

The touch of his hands on my skin was a decadent torture. His palm wrapped around my ankle as he steadied me before carefully applying the bright peach lacquer. Each nail was painted with a sure hand, then he set aside the bottle and blew warm air across my toes.