Sugar on the Edge (10 page)

“Sweet?” I ask, dumbfounded by this apparent nickname he’s given me.

“Yeah… ‘sweet’… because you’re… well, sweet.”

“For a writer, you’re not very original,” I mutter, and he laughs in response.

When I reach the top of the stairs, I see the vacuum cleaner waiting there and Gavin disappearing into his room. I go ahead and get started on the three spare bedrooms first, which will give Gavin plenty of time to get showered and vacated before I vacuum the large area rug in his bedroom.

Unfortunately, the normal lull that I find so peaceful with the vacuuming about sends me into a deep sleep while I’m standing, so I make my movements a little shorter in stride to bust up my rhythm. Glancing at my watch, I see I’ve only been at it for five minutes, and I’m about ready to topple over. God, I can’t wait for this day to be over.

When I finish with the spare bedrooms, I cautiously walk into Gavin’s. His bathroom door is still shut, so I plug in the machine and start to move it across the huge rug. I try to make quick work of it so I can get out of the privacy of his room, but within just moments of me starting, the bathroom door opens and a wave of steam pours out.

And yeah… Gavin walks out with nothing but a towel around his narrow waist.

I sneak a quick glance at him, and shit… that memory will be seared into my brain forever. He’s a pretty ripped guy, but my eyes were helplessly drawn to that dark line of hair that went due south from just below his navel. It brought back memories of the way he was exposed outside of his boxers when I first met him. I had a guilty curiosity course through me, wondering how big he would be if he were fully erect.

Gavin doesn’t say a word, although I probably wouldn’t hear him over the hum of the vacuum. I turn my back on him, moving my way around the other side of his bed. Just as I’m about finished with that side, I jump as something goes sailing past my shoulder and lands on the floor beside me. Glancing down, I see it’s the towel he was wearing. My skin prickles with awareness that I’m standing in the same room with a very naked, and very sexy, British author.

I know this is a test. He’s testing me to see how anti-heroine I can be. I’m sure he expects me to blush deeply—which, okay, I am—but I’m sure he expects me to stiffen up in mortification and ignore his taunt due to extreme embarrassment.

It’s time to show Mr. Cooke my heroine traits.

Holding the vacuum handle in one hand, I bend over and grab the towel, throwing it over my shoulder. I turn my head, look straight at him, and will myself to maintain eye contact and not look at anything below his chin.

“Thanks,” I call out loud enough that he can hear me over the vacuum. I even give him a quick wink before turning back around.

Holy hell… he was completely naked. While it was a brief glance and I definitely sought out just his eyes, my surrounding vision took in his nude form in all its glory. I’m sadly disappointed I didn’t get a better look at the rest of him, and my cheeks burn with the realization that I am undeniably, one-hundred percent, completely attracted to this strange and frustrating man.

But God… look at him. What’s not to be attracted to?

I go back to finishing a few more swipes of the rug. Turning the vacuum off, I push it out of his room. I have the distinct feeling he’s smirking at me. I wish I were brave enough to do something that would leave him confounded, wondering if Savannah “Sweet” Shepherd isn’t quite the demure little creature he has me pegged to be.

But truly… I don’t have that in me. Especially not with the lack of sleep I’m functioning under. I’d probably end up doing something completely lame and cheesy, and my new nickname from him would be “Dork.”

When I reach the hallway, as an afterthought, I can’t help but turn back around to ask him, “Do you want me to clean your office really quick since I didn’t get it last week?”

Damn… he has a pair of jeans on already, but his chest is still yummy and bared to me. He nods his head while reaching in a drawer for a T-shirt. “Just give it a quick dusting. You can do the floor next week. I have to make a few calls before I start writing.”

I quickly run downstairs and grab my bucket of supplies, trudging up to the third floor. The last flight of stairs leaves me winded, and I’m betting that has everything to do with lack of food energy.

His office is nice with dark hardwoods and burgundy walls. It holds nothing but an ornate wooden desk in the middle of the room that faces the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlook the ocean. His desk is well organized with a laptop in the middle, a stack of legal pads, and a few pens. To the right of the laptop sits a small frame, and I creep forward to get a closer look.

I’m surprised to see it’s a picture of a little boy sitting on the steps outside of a house. He’s adorable, with brown hair and bright blue eyes. He’s showing a semi-toothless grin at the camera, and I have to wonder who it is.

I hear Gavin coming up the stairs so I quickly get to work dusting his desk, making a quick pass over the framed photo but steering clear of his laptop. I also wipe down the doors and windowsills, deciding against cleaning the windows because they look to be in good shape and I know Gavin wants to get to work.

By the time Gavin sits at his desk and boots up his computer, I’m backing out of his office. Just before he closes the door, he reminds me, “A sandwich and some chips if you don’t mind around noon.”

“Sure thing, boss man,” I tell him and shut the door behind me.

“Sweet… wake up,” I hear a voice say, sounding like it’s way off in the distance. I push mentally against it and sink back down into slumber.

Something touches my shoulder lightly and shakes me. “Come on, Sweet… get up.”

“Stop,” I say grouchily, swatting at the offending thing that’s shaking me.

I hear a chuckling sound, and it gets louder. “Savannah… wake up. You’re going to get a kink in your neck in that position.”

What?

I lift my head up and blearily open my eyes. Looking around in confusion, I’m in a place I don’t immediately recognize, and then Gavin’s face comes into focus. Then I see that I’m in his kitchen.

Why in the hell am I in Gavin’s kitchen?

“Gavin?” I ask as I sit up straighter and rub my eyes.

“You fell asleep on the counter,” I hear him say, and awareness starts to filter in.

I finished cleaning but had miscalculated the timing of his laundry, still waiting on the last load to dry. I went ahead and fixed him a sandwich, put it in the fridge, and then sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island. I vaguely remember laying my arms on the counter, resting my head there for just a second. I intended to close my eyes for just a moment, hoping to get some relief from the blistering headache that had started about an hour before.

A huge yawn courses through me and I arch my back, stretching my arms skyward, and yup… my neck is sore from the position I was in. No clue how long I was out.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Gavin says. “Sleeping on the job. What’s a stern employer to do?”

“Sorry,” I mutter, rubbing my eyes again. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“No worries,” he says as he leans a hip against the corner beside where I’m sitting. Crossing his arms over his chest, he looks down at me. “No offense, though. You kind of look like crap. Rough night of sleep?”

“Try no sleep at all,” I tell him with another yawn. “I had a job for the newspaper over in Charlotte yesterday and when I got back in to town, I came straight here to clean your house.”

“What the fuck, Sweet?” I hear him growl, and I focus my weary gaze on him. He looks angry but for the first time, it doesn’t cause a frisson of unease to course through me. I think I’m too tired to be intimidated by him. “You didn’t have to come today. You could have just gone home and slept.”

Pushing myself up from the stool, I stand a little wobbly. “Well, yeah… sorry, but the poor have to work when they can so it wasn’t an option for me to ditch my job.”

“Go lie down on my couch and get some more sleep,” he commands me, and I don’t even bother looking at him. Instead, I head into the laundry room, where I can still hear the machine whirring. The timer says it has twenty more minutes.

Just great.

Walking back into the kitchen, Gavin appraises me while standing in the same position.

“I made you a sandwich. It’s in the fridge,” I tell him and sit back down on the stool again, resting my chin on my hand. “I still have twenty minutes before your last load of laundry is done, and then I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Go lie down on the couch and sleep for twenty minutes then,” he demands of me again.

“No, thanks,” I say, refusing to look at him, even as my eyes start to droop.

“For fuck’s sake,” I hear him grumble. The next thing I know, one of his arms is sliding under my legs, the other behind my back, and he’s lifting me from the stool.

“Gavin,” I yelp in surprise as he carries me into the living room, I’m sure to deposit me on the couch. “I don’t need to sleep. I can do that when I get home.”

“Just shut up, Savannah. For once, your mouth isn’t so sweet,” he growls at me, and then bends over to lay me on the couch with surprising tenderness.

I start to sit up the minute his arms release me, but he does nothing more than put his large hand in the center of my chest and push me back down. Whereas ten seconds ago, I felt bone weary with exhaustion, the warmth of his hand through my T-shirt causes my pulse to speed up. I struggle for just a moment, attempting to continue my rise, but his brute force wins out and he pushes me all the way back down.

“If you don’t lie down, I’m going to lie down on top of you and pin you there. Now which do you want?”

“Fine,” I huff out just to get him to leave, because there’s nothing appealing about him laying his body over mine, right? “Just until the laundry is done. Now go eat your sandwich and get back to work. I’ll see you next week, okay?”

He stares at me a moment, his lips curved up in amusement. “Sure thing, Sweet. See you next week.”

Gavin turns away and heads back into the kitchen. I close my eyes, and I’m immediately out.

What the fuck are you doing, Cooke?
I ask myself for about the hundredth time as I watch Savannah sleeping on my couch. The sun has gone down, and she’s been out for a solid nine hours. I’ve never seen anyone sleep that hard before. She hasn’t moved a muscle… at least not as far as I can tell.

After I deposited her on the couch, I ate my sandwich and went back to work, banging out another three thousand words before dinnertime. I came back downstairs, expecting to see the couch vacated, but she was still flat on her back, one arm resting over her stomach where her T-shirt had ridden up just enough to give me a tiny peek at the smooth flesh. Her long legs were bare as she was wearing a pair of denim shorts today because the weather is quite mild. My fucking fingers itched to touch her, but I shook my head to clear it of such ludicrous thoughts and went into the kitchen to heat the Mexican casserole she left me.