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“Sabella, can you please let me handle this one little thing?” he said impatiently. “Really. I promise. I can manage some stuff on my own.”
Rory sounded a shade put out. Okay, so she was a little territorial with the garage, maybe too much so. But over the years she had let it become her husband and her baby and everything in between. Rory knew that. So why was he becoming so angry now?
“I was just curious.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and gave Noah what she hoped was a sweet smile. “Just tell me what he did and I’ll leave. Are you going to fire him? Can I watch?”
“Fine.” Rory didn’t look happy, that was odd enough. He looked angry at her, and he was never angry with her. And his smile. It was tight. All teeth. When had he turned into a full-grown man on her? He wasn’t a kid brother any longer. “He was staring at your ass! Now you deal with it.”
He turned and slammed out of the office, leaving her to stare at him in shock before she turned to meet Noah’s amused gaze.
“He was lying to me,” she said.
He grinned. Noah was absolutely entranced. Once again, he had to ask, though, what had happened to the Sabella he had known six years before. The one who never chipped a nail, and would have never, under any circumstances, butted into a male/male confrontation.
“You have a fine ass,” he stated, and knew she wasn’t buying it.
Her eyes narrowed. “And you’re not going to tell me what he was chewing your ass over?”
Noah had to chuckle. “It was more in the way of a warning.”
He was treading a fine line. Nathan wasn’t as dead as Noah might wish; he still had habits that had once been ingrained. One of those habits? Twirling that damned wrench as he tried to figure out a particular problem beneath the hood of a vehicle.
She sniffed at his response. “Piss him off too far and I’ll convince him to finally fire you.”
He had to grin at that one as he sauntered to the door. Before passing her, he stopped, lowered his head, and whispered, “And I caught you looking at my ass too. Maybe I should tell Rory on you.”
She caught his arm as he moved to open the door, star
ing up at him soberly. “You’re messing up my life,” she told him quietly. “And I don’t like it.”
Noah sobered. He could see an edge of pain, of knowledge, in her eyes. For the past three days they had been circling each other like combatants, edging forward and back, trying to make the other force the confrontation they both knew was coming.
“How am I messing up your life, Sabella?” Once, long ago, he would have known. He would have known the woman standing before him and could have sworn he could anticipate her every thought and move. He was learning, though, and hated it, but he was learning there had been so little that he had known about her.
Nathan’s wife would have never barged into the office. Hell, she would have never been working on a car or staring him down now. The woman that had belonged to Nathan had hidden from him, just as Nathan had hidden from her.
But this woman was going to belong to Noah.
“You think you can take over, don’t you?” she asked him softly. “Walk right in here, and everything you want is going to fall into place.”
He narrowed his eyes on her. He’d had that thought, maybe. She was disabusing him of that notion quickly.
“I just needed a job.” He forced a grin and watched as her gaze examined his face.
“You just need something to control,” she told him as she eased away from him and moved to her desk. “You need someone to control. Your world has to be under your thumb, following your rules.”
He turned and watched her closely as she leaned against the desk.
Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail, her face streaked with oil. There was a smudge on her neck and her jeans were stained with it. And she was the damnedest sight he had ever seen. All woman, confident, almost imposing, and the snap of lust that shot past his control nearly sent a shudder tearing through his body.
“I won’t deny wanting you,” he told her.
Her eyes widened. “I didn’t ask if you wanted me.”
“I’m tired of tiptoeing around the subject,” he growled. “We’re playing a game here and it’s starting to irritate me, Sabella.”
A mocking smile crossed her lips. “I don’t need you, Noah. If you didn’t notice several days ago, I have one relationship to keep me busy. I don’t need another.”
“You don’t sleep with him.” He moved to her then.
