Lovell, Cooper - Tessa's Highlander (Siren Publishing Classic) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Oh God. Oh, great, glorious, benevolent God.

“I…um, I’m…Yes. Tessa. Yes!” she stammered.

Standing in her doorway was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. The split-second glimpse of his face upon opening the door simultaneously sent a shiver down her spine and a warm rush through her middle. Surreptitiously, she looked down to see if her tongue was actually lying on the floor and was amazed to see that it wasn’t.

Starting at his big, brown work boots, her eyes began the long journey up to his ruggedly handsome face. Strong, muscular thighs strained slightly against the perfectly worn-in, low-slung jeans. Jeans that also hugged slim hips and attempted, in vain, to conceal behind the button fly a very impressive front bulge. Above the waistband of his jeans, the ripple of washboard abs was easily visible beneath a very taut hunter green tee. His wide chest was partially hidden by the winter-weight
Carhartt
jacket that hung open, and his shoulders were so wide that most of the sunlight was blocked out from behind him.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear her voice shouting,
Stop staring like an idiot.
Man, she really, really hoped that voice was in her head and not actually coming out of her mouth.

She licked her lips as she felt the warmth that had gathered in her belly move down, making her pussy twitch.

In order to see his face, it was necessary to tilt her head back. Lord, the man had to be at least six and a half feet tall. When she finally focused, his eyes were looking into hers. Beautiful, dark-amber-colored eyes that locked with hers, and she momentarily found herself unable to look away. Above his eyes were winged brows, one of which was arched in question. Maybe wondering if she was a dangerous or
nondangerous
kind of lunatic.

His jaw was strong below rugged but high cheekbones, and his mouth was sexy as all hell, bottom lip full and a little pouty with an upper lip that looked like it could and did pull off the wickedest of sneers.

Oh, the things that mouth is probably capable of,
Tessa thought before she could stop herself and felt the wetness between her legs dampen her panties as her pussy twitched again. What was going on there? She’d never had a reaction like this before. His skin was tanned to a golden brown, and she remembered Jaime saying something about him spending the last year in Mexico. When she tore her gaze from his face, she saw that his shoulder-length, wavy hair was exactly the color of a Hershey bar. Gorgeous, rich-chocolate brown with threads of gold laced through it, more evidence of the kiss of the Mexican sun.

Jaime hadn’t sent her a master carpenter; he’d sent her a god. A freaking, bona fide Golden God!

She had no idea the coffee mug had slipped from her fingers until she heard the crash on the tile.

“Oh no!” Tessa exclaimed as she looked down at the mess. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I splattered your boots!”

“
Is’na
’ worry, lass,” the Glorious God said quietly.

Tessa’s mind reeled and her stomach did a flip-flop. A Scottish burr! How motherfucking hot was that? His voice was all deep and
rumbly
. That voice, combined with the burr, seeped over her like warm honey. Another gush in her panties. She couldn’t help but wonder what the etiquette was for excusing yourself to change your soaking underwear.

In an attempt to regroup and avoid further embarrassment, she tilted her head back, smiled, stuck out her right hand, and said, “Hi, I’m Tessa, please come in.”

Instead of taking her hand, the Golden God only grunted, reached down to pick up his toolbox, and stepped over the puddle of coffee and broken ceramic and past Tessa into the house.

She was about to get good and annoyed at his obvious brush-off, but it evaporated like a wisp of smoke when she caught the vision of his fine, firm ass. Tessa glanced down stupidly at her snubbed hand and let it drop back to her side as he looked appraisingly around the house.

Without looking back at her, he said, “It’s likely best if you show me what you’d like, and I’ll make some notes of my own on the specs that Jaime gave me.”

She gave her head a little shake, took a deep breath to bring herself back into the here and now, and squeezed around Gavan—Lord but the man was huge—to lead him the rest of the way into the house. All the while, she was wondering what species of bug had crawled up that phenomenal butt to make him so standoffish or if he was just generally
pissy
.

Then it occurred to her.

An expression had flashed across his face when she opened the door. What was that look? Disgust? Yup, that had to be it. Being Jaime’s friend, of course he’d know about her books. She’d encountered this before. Yet another person who read her books and decided that because she had a full, rich, descriptive, and admittedly slightly bizarre imagination, she was somehow defective, bad, or twisted.

How dare he?

* * * *

After Gavan pulled the paperwork from the protective cardboard tube, Tessa described the modifications and improvements she wanted. In the working area in her library, she pointed out that since the wall-to-wall bookshelves were twelve feet high and were all full of reference and research books she used regularly for her writing, she wanted rolling ladders on each wall for easier access to the higher shelves. The solarium, just off the library, required some step-stool type installations so that various plants could be reached with ease. All the while, Gavan silently nodded and took notes, only speaking when absolutely necessary.

The silent, pensive Golden God.

As they moved through the house and Tessa further explained her needs, she tried her best to be charming and gracious, for which she received only nods, steely looks, and a twitching jaw muscle.

While they were in the kitchen, Gavan turned to her to finally speak and said, “You require a lot of work tae make your life easier. You could just get a smaller house.”

It took all of Tessa’s strength to smile sweetly while inside she raged. Gorgeous or not, this guy was a jerk and she needed to get away from him before she offended him, for Jaime’s sake.

Tessa stood up as straight as possible and thrust her chin out in defiance. “Mr. Murdoch, you have all of my brother’s specs as well as the original blueprints from the renovations two years ago. I believe that should be sufficient for you to do your job here. If you have a question, I’ll be in my library working. Please knock before entering.”

With that, she retrieved the dustpan and brush from the pantry and went to clean up the idiotic mess she’d made at the feet of the gorgeous but obnoxious ogre, mumbling curses under her breath the whole time.

* * * *

Hours later, Tessa stared at the computer monitor, not working at all. Instead, she sat thinking about the hulking hunk of man currently wandering about her home. She’d known he existed. Jaime had met him, what was it? Seven or so years ago? They’d been working on the same job and had remained friends. She could always tell that Jaime had immense respect for Gavan as a person and for his work, which definitely counted for something. But Jaime had said more than once that Gavan was a loner, which was probably why he’d never accepted invitations to parties she and Jaime held or even just joined them for dinner occasionally when asked. Granted, sometimes he was away on business for extended periods of time or just plain busy. But other times, Jaime had told her he knew he was declining because he just didn’t want to come. So, in seven years, she’d never met this man that Jaime considered one of his very best friends.

Her mind wandered to Gavan’s lips. His lips were sinfully beautiful. She imagined him pressing them to hers to possess her mouth, then moving down, concentrating on her neck then finally on to her breasts. Her real nipples, not just the ones in her mind, tightened at the thought of him pulling them between his teeth to lightly graze them as he suckled. Her own hand came up to pinch herself through her sweater to assuage some of the pressure building there because of her fantasy. Oh, she wondered how it would feel if those lips wrapped around her clit and suckled while pumping one or even two of those big, manly fingers in and out of her cunt until she screamed. After that, he would pull out what was hiding, or
not,
as the case may be
,
behind the fly of his jeans and push it into her till she flew into oblivion.

Another gush in her panties.

She squirmed in her seat and wondered why she was suddenly suffering such attacks of lust and desire. She couldn’t recall ever experiencing such physical longing in her life. Yeah, she wrote really graphic scenes regularly for her books and did some crazy research to do it. From romance novels to how-to books to outright porn, she collected information wherever she could. And while she knew on some level her books were super hot, she just never felt that way herself. Basically, nobody did it for her like that.

After one last valiant but fruitless effort to concentrate on work, she gave up to make lunch.

Tessa decided that since the work on her house would most likely take several weeks, she should make nice and decided to offer an olive branch in the form of lunch. When she walked into the kitchen, though, she saw Gavan on the patio eating a sandwich from his lunch box like it was seventy-five degrees outside instead of twenty-five. She pursed her lips and rolled back the sliding door. He didn’t turn to look at her so she cleared her throat a little and saw that he ceased his chewing, which she figured was going to be it, as far as acknowledgement was going to go.

“Um, it’s awfully cold out here and I’m about to make myself some lunch. Would you like to come in and join me? I could make you some soup to go with your sandwich.”

Without turning, Gavan quietly said, “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

Tessa slowly and deliberately slid the door shut with all the control she had in her body in order to keep from slamming it, turned, and mumbled under her breath as she strode into the kitchen to make lunch. She slapped two pieces of salami on a roll as she muttered under her breath about rude jackasses. The addition of a slice of cheese was accompanied by a diatribe regarding the arrogance of some people. The spreading of the mustard earned a list of conditions and behaviors she simply would not tolerate.

This big oaf was supposed to be one of Jaime’s best friends, and she wondered how a fun-loving goofball like her brother managed to be friends with such a morose boor. Obviously, the man didn’t have a sense of humor or a courteous bone in his body. Talk about tall, dark, and brooding.

* * * *

By the time she finished lunch, the effects of getting less than two hours sleep were creeping up on her. She retreated to her bedroom to grab a much-needed catnap in the hope she’d be less irritable. Throughout the afternoon, she could hear the sounds of Gavan working and she alternated between working on her laptop and dozing in and out around the noise.

Just before five, the noise stopped completely. She rolled off the bed and padded downstairs. As she reached the last step, she saw Gavan slipping his massive shoulders into his jacket.

“I’ll be back
tomorra
’ then,” Gavan said without looking at her as he bent to pick up his things and left. She followed him to the door and closed it behind him. Tessa leaned back against it and listened as Gavan loaded his tools into his truck and finally drove away.

“
Arrrrgggghhhh
! What a brute! What a Neanderthal! Was that man raised in a cave, or what? No manners at all!” Tessa complained as she stomped away from the door. She snatched up the phone with a vengeance, shouting “Rude!” with each punch of a number, intending to give Jaime hell for sending that obnoxious giant to her house, but got his voice mail.

Grrrrrr
…talk about unsatisfying.

“Jaime, it’s Tessa. Please call me when you get this. This thing with Murdoch isn’t going to work at all.”

She stood in the middle of her great room and tried to decide what to do to burn off some of the nervous energy that anger and annoyance was stirring in her. She glanced toward the library and knew work was out of the question. She considered curling up with a book in front of the fireplace, but with her level of agitation, no book would hold her interest. Finally, she settled on a nice, decidedly large glass of burgundy accompanied by a soak in the tub.