Sweet Talk Boxed Set (Ten NEW Contemporary Romances by Bestselling Authors to Benefit Diabetes Research plus BONUS Novel) (87 page)

“Count yourself lucky,” she said, registering the fact that he really hadn’t done any modeling before. Which was interesting, wasn’t it, with a body like that? “Gretchen will be waxing a whole lot more.”

“That’ll surprise Gretchen, that she’s the one.”

“Why? She was the most angelic, no question about it, and that’s what we’re going for.”

“We’re not compatible,” Will told her, his expression serious. “She’s an Aries, and I’m a Virgo.”

“Tell me you did not just say that.”

“Well…” He forked up another bite of beef. “I wouldn’t say it had occurred to me as a stumbling block, but she seemed dead concerned about it. Apparently I’m likely to be too shy and modest. Repressed, you could say. Whereas she’ll be taking charge. So you see…” He paused and sighed. “Exactly wrong for the job, aren’t I. Why are you laughing?”

“I’m not sure what a Virgo is or isn’t. But let’s just say that I’m pretty sure somebody forged your birth certificate. And Gretchen seemed like she’d be able to fake it. I saw those pictures. I’d have sworn she was about to…”

“Yeh. Looked that way, didn’t it? I’m having a serious re-think of my actual effect on the opposite sex, because I don’t think she’s going to fall asleep dreaming about me tonight.”

“As long as the two of you can make other people dream, or at least daydream,” Faith said, deciding that the issue of his effect on the opposite sex was going to stay right off the table, “we’re all good. Anyway, we aren’t actually giving out a storyline. If somebody wants to make up a plot where she turns the tables on you, you being the shy, retiring Virgo you are, I guess they can. Not sure how well that’ll sell, but that’s not really my problem. But on that note, Calvin and I wanted to know…what are you? I mean, what ethnic background? And would anybody be able to tell? We thought we’d offer a little bio on each of you. Fictional, of course.”

“Maori. Some people would be able to tell, if it matters. And fictional would be good.”

She set that one aside to think about later. “Maori—that’s something New Zealandish? Because that’d be good. New Zealand is sexy.”

“It is, eh. Didn’t realize that. And, yeh, Maori’s about as New Zealandish as you can get.”

She got out her notebook. She’d do some research. “What would be a good Maori name for you? Something fierce. Something strong.”

“How about ‘Hemi?’” There was a smile trying to work its way onto his lips now, lighting up his eyes. Some mischief, clearly. She’d better double-check the name. “Means ‘James’ in Maori. Not too hard for Pakeha—white people—to pronounce, either.”

“Ooh!” She tried not to bounce with it. “Hemi…and Hope. Oh, yes.” She started scribbling again. “I’m so good.”

He laughed out loud. “Yes. I’m beginning to think you are.”

“And here’s the shooting schedule we’ve worked out.” She handed it over. Time to get things back on track, even though the frivolous part of her desperately wanted to keep—well, flirting. “Six days, as advertised.”

“OK. I’ll be there. Waxed and all. And if we’ve got all that sorted, I’d better get out of here. I need to go look at a couple places to live, or I really
am
going to be dark and dangerous, because that hotel’s about to drive me mad.”

“I thought you were on vacation,” she said, her guard instantly up again. Had he been lying about just passing through? She didn’t like the paying-under-the-table thing, whatever Calvin said. She’d argued with him about it earlier, to no effect. But this guy could be anybody, however much he made her laugh. And whatever he said about not being dangerous, he had “dangerous for her peace of mind” written right in the tattoo.

“I am,” he said. “I need a place to live while I’m here, that’s all. Those bloody ching-chinging machines in the lobby are getting on my nerves a bit. I’d like to have a cooker, too, make my own breakfast. Not rapt about my choices so far, but…” He shrugged. “It’s just a few weeks.”

“If you’re really looking…” she said slowly, then stopped.

“What? You know someplace?”

“I manage an apartment building. And I’ve got a place that’s open.”

“Has to be furnished. I don’t have anything. Nothing but a couple suitcases.”

“Oh,” she said, and couldn’t suppress her smile. “It’s furnished. And three weeks? That’d be perfect.”

Or incredibly stupid. One or the other.

***

“It’s…uh…” he said a half-hour later, groping for a word that wouldn’t insult her. “Comfortable, I guess.”

“It was Mrs. Ferguson’s apartment.” She moved briskly inside and set her ever-present laptop case down on the coffee table. “After she died last month, her son came and got a few things, and told me to get rid of the rest. Which isn’t ideal, because it means I have to sell everything, or dump it, before I can paint and rent it out again. I took care of her clothes and emptied the bathroom cabinets and the refrigerator and so forth, and it’s clean, but I haven’t had a chance to do the rest of it. I was actually thinking about seeing if it would work for a short-term rental, since I’ve got the furniture already. You could be my guinea pig.”

“May work better for girls,” he said.

That was the understatement of the year, because if he’d ever seen an old-lady apartment, this was it. The couch was flowered. The chair was flowered—with different flowers. It was like a bloody garden in here, though a fairly musty-smelling one. There were cushions everywhere, most of them with little tufts or big, hard buttons, looking like nothing he’d want to lean his head against. Framed prints on the wall, the most loathsome one, over the couch, featuring a cottage in the middle of a garden, with brightly lit windows glowing cozily in the twilight. A painting he was already placing on his personal Most-Hated list, and he’d only been looking at it for a minute. Every little table, and there were heaps of little tables, was wearing a skirt, like God hated a naked table. And there were flowers on the skirted tables, because apparently you could never have too many flowers. He fingered a petal. Silk flowers, he guessed. And ceramic statues of cats. Even the dining-room table had a skirt, with a glass top over it. And fake flowers on it, with some cats posed around the vase in a circle. Crouching cats. Stretching cats. Cats curled in sleep. Cats with kittens. Many, many too many cats.

“Her son didn’t want the cats?” he asked. “Or the flowers?”

“Ah…no. But I’ll get rid of them,” she promised. “And anything else you don’t want around, if you decide to take the place. I should have donated them already. But let me show you the kitchen.”

She led the way into it. There weren’t flowers in here, at least. Looked like a kitchen. Except for the canisters, which were in the shape of cats. He lifted the head off a Siamese and peered inside. Tea.

“Still some basic staples in here,” she said encouragingly. “So you wouldn’t have to do so much shopping. As long as you like, you know, tea and cookies.”

“I’m from New Zealand. I have to like tea and bikkies. It’s required.”

The bedroom was more of the same, and he eyed the pink-canopied bed with a jaundiced eye. Canopied? This lady had clearly been the last of the true romantics. But the worst was the bathroom. Painted pink. “Why is there a Barbie on the toilet?” he asked. “Case I get bored?”

“Not a Barbie.” Faith lifted the plastic doll, revealing what was under the flounced white crocheted skirt. “Look at this! Your new apartment comes equipped with an extra roll of toilet paper!”

“Brilliant. Well, it’s got a bathroom and a kitchen, anyway. Bigger than one of those extended-stay places by the airport, and the price is better, too. One thing you can say about this—it isn’t sterile.” He spent enough of his life in hotel rooms. He didn’t need to spend his holiday in another one. If he’d been in New Zealand, he’d have been in a bach, somebody’s holiday home, with all their bits and bobs about. It was comfier that way, even if you didn’t much care for their bits and bobs. And it was an excuse to get closer to Faith. That, most of all. “But if it’s all right with you, I’ll bung that doll into a drawer somewhere, along with a few other things. That thing is going to give me nightmares, staring at me while I’m on the loo.”

“I’ll take it.” No smile this time, and she tucked it into her arm a bit protectively.

“Sorry. No accounting for my bad taste, I guess.”

“No, it’s terrible, you’re right, and so are the cats. It’s just…I liked Mrs. Ferguson. I wouldn’t use this, but I’ll…I don’t know.” She fingered the doll’s flounced skirt. “She’d crocheted me an afghan for Christmas. I opened it after she was gone. Her arthritis was bad, but she still did it, just because she needed to do things for people. She was that sort of person.” Her voice wasn’t quite steady now. “I miss her.”

He waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. He knew about missing people, though. About the ache that settled low in your chest, the tears that would come up behind your eyelids, always at the most inconvenient time, when a snatch of song, a joke, even a truly hideous doll reminded you. When you thought of something you wanted to tell the person, and realized that he wasn’t there to tell anymore.

It wasn’t that she liked the cats. She’d kept them, and the horrible doll, and the awful paintings, because she hadn’t been able to get rid of them yet. And since Will was wearing his grandfather’s watch right now, which didn’t even keep perfect time, he could understand that.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently, and she nodded once, quick and short. “Are all my neighbors old, then?” he asked, trying to help her move on.

“Well, depending what you think of me,” she said, clearly rallying her forces.

“You? You live here?” Better and better.

“Right next door. I told you, I manage the building. So what do you think? Cats, dolls, flowers, and all—which could all be gone, I promise, in fifteen minutes—do you want it?”

He made his decision. “Yeh. I want it. Especially if you’re living next door.”

She crossed her arms across the front of that T-shirt, which was a nice look for her, because she had some curves and no mistake. Unfortunately, it was also nowhere close to the body language of a woman who was saying, “Come and get it, boy.”

“I’m sure I don’t need to say this,” she said, and no, she didn’t. “Because I’m also sure that I’m nothing close to your type. But I’m not interested.”

“Not?” He made a joke of it, even as he felt a jolt of…surprise? Disappointment? Something. “Convenient as it would be to have your very own Maori warrior right next door? Bit of a winter fling? I’d never tell.”

“No. I don’t fling. And I’m very busy.”

“Ah. Very busy.”

“And,” she added hastily, “not interested.”

Well, that was a little too much protesting. “Not even if I promised to be dark and dangerous?”

She laughed out loud, and he grinned back, because he liked the way she laughed.  She had a little gap between her front teeth that was just…absolutely adorable. She really
was
the girl next door. She’d be
his
girl next door, and he was restless, and he needed…he needed something.

Looking at the shape of her, the warmth of her, he found himself filled with a yearning for the oblivion that only a woman could provide. For that perfect moment when you first slid inside her, felt her opening to take you in. That instant when the world shrank to only this woman, only this body. He looked at her leaning back like that, smiling at him, and he could feel the way her hands would grab for his shoulders. He could hear the way she would sigh, the way she would moan. He could very nearly taste her, warm and sweet and salty as the sea, and he wanted to. He needed to.

“Well, since you already revealed your dirty secret, that you’re not actually dangerous…” she said, not seeing it in him. Not seeing it at all. “I’m afraid the magic is gone. I’ll have to hold out for the hurtin’ kind.”

“Right.” He kept the smile on his face, shoving the thoughts back where they belonged. He held out a hand instead. “Friends?”

She hesitated a moment longer, then took it, and her hand felt good in his. Warm, and firm, and just soft enough. Exactly like her.

“Sure,” she said. “Friends.”

Hemi Te Mana

Will turned up at the studio at nine o’clock two days later as promised, his hair still a bit damp from the shower, grateful for the trainer he’d found to help him out during his stay. It might be called his holiday, but nothing was a holiday, not if you wanted to be the best.

Now, he was awake, alert, and relaxed the way you could only be when you’d been doing twenty-meter sprints, quick turns, and up-downs, one after another, on a rugby field. When you’d been running with the heavy bag across your shoulders, fifty meters each way, then, without much pause at all, quick-stepping through a network of orange cones, knees high.

His latest session at the Outlaws’ brand-new field the day before had been much the same, and nothing like the same. The same kind of running drills, but he’d felt like an…an accessory.

What they had really wanted to see was his kicking. He’d showed them that, but afterwards, he’d mostly been relegated to watching. He hadn’t even been invited to join the tackling practice, because it seemed that kickers in gridiron, the American version of football, almost never tackled. Where was the fun in that? Or in kicking, if you hadn’t even been on the field beforehand? It was so much better when the kick came after you’d sprinted to intercept a fleet-footed winger, made the tackle, then switched effortlessly to offense when one of the forwards forced the turnover. When you were shouting to your backline, getting them into position, watching for the chance.

Subtle as a chess match, direct as a punch to the gut. When somebody dove across the tryline at last for those hard-earned five points, and you pounded him on the back for doing it, then had to settle your galloping heart, breathe deep, and find the stillness at your center before you took that toughest of kicks all the way from the side. When you’d sent the ball between the posts for the two points that could determine the outcome of the game, and you didn’t even have to look, because you knew it had gone through. When you were pulling your mouthguard out of your sock, shoving it into your mouth, and trotting back out to await the other team’s kickoff so you could do it all again.