‘My fragile male ego is wounded.’
‘No. Yourhandis wounded. It’s going to make it harder, surely?’
‘Won’t know until we try. As long as you don’t mind me manhandling you?’
He heard her swallow, but she still said: ‘No. It’s okay.’
‘Okay, probably the easiest thing is if I start off lifting you up as high as possible, then I’ll climb the steps and you can bend and guide yourself over – kind of like when you had a wheelbarrow race as a kid. D’you know what I mean? D’you do that in the States?’
‘Yeah, sure. I think I get it.’ That nervous tremor was back in her voice, and he tried not to take it personally. He was feeling a little trembly too if he was honest. Probably blood loss.
He moved in close to the steps, bringing his head directly level with her breasts. Perfect: would the opportunities for him to come across as a pervert never end? He could feel the heat of her, sense her curves lifting and falling in a faster rhythm although he was staring at her stomach, fastening all his attention there with every gram of his willpower.
‘Right, I’m going to wrap my arms around your legs and lift. Then step up to the top. Grab on to my head or shoulders if you feel your balance going.’
‘Okay.’
He folded his arms securely around her denim-clad legs, his hands reaching around so she could almost sit on his locked forearms. His face was now almost pressed into her chest. He was going to have to be so careful here not to accidentally ruin this trust she’d placed in him. ‘I’m going to lift you in, three, two, one—’
Lila
Lila’s stomach didn’t so much get filled with butterflies, as roll itself up and attempt to insinuate itself between her collarbones as Rowan lifted her up, leaving her abdomen empty and quivering. It was like that scene inDirty Dancing. Sort of. All she knew was, she’d never felt so light and tiny as when he picked her up and she rose into the air as though she was on wire. His arms were strong and steady around her legs. It was giddying and she couldn’t help but let out a little giggle of nerves and…okay, all right, she had to admit it: pleasure. She wobbled and her hands came down automatically onto his shoulders to steady herself, only that meant her bending over at the waist.
‘Are you all right?’ His voice was muffled against her navel, his breath hot through her T-shirt. Good Lord, she had Rowan Walker’s face pressed to her body, his arms wrapped around her, and she was simultaneously dying of mortification and hoping she never forgot it for the rest of her life.
‘Yep. I’m good.’ She managed to clip out and straightened up, her hands pressing into the solid bones and muscles of his wide shoulders. She’d known he was tall but seeing someone on a TV screen was quite different to having their body right next to yours. All that height meant, despite the impression she’d had of him being lean, everything else was scaled up too… Her cheeks flamed once again as that thought sashayed towards even more inappropriate thoughts. Jeez, she really needed to stop thinking about his body and concentrate more on the task at hand.
He stepped up to the top step, still holding her as though he was lifting a big pillow, not an entire person, and her head grazed the ceiling like his had done before. This was the point where she needed to turn and kind of slide through the window, to avoid taking the shelving down with her.
‘Are you able to turn so I’m facing the window?’
‘Uh-huh,’ came his muffled grunt. Okay, maybe this wasn’t as easy as she was imagining for him. She should get a move on.
She planted her hands on the shelves and bent her body over his head, desperately trying not to rub her breasts over his head and failing miserably. His hair was soft and thick on top and smelled of citrus. He walked his grip down her legs, his long-fingered hands managing to clasp her legs firmly and making her brain go on a journey it hadn’t in some time. A very dirty journey. And now his face was right next to her thighs.
‘Might be best if you kneel on my shoulders.’
Heaven help her.Kneelon his shoulders? She did as he suggested, without speaking. Because she couldn’t.
She focused on the window and pushed at it. It opened easily enough where he’d already lifted the latch and she ducked her head through, the discoloured old paint flaking off and catching in her hair and collar.
‘Are you through?’
‘My head is.’
‘And it isn’t stuck?’ He huffed a laugh.
‘Nope.’
‘How does the drop look? Maybe we should’ve done this the other way around – feet first.’ He swore and his grip seemed to tighten around her legs as though he suddenly wasn’t happy to let her go any further.
‘It’s fine. It’s not too far, I can reach the floor with my hands.’ There was no way she was going to go through the sweet torture of clambering all over him again. She might end up having one of those febrile seizures because her temperature had skyrocketed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yep. Just help me keep going.’
He took a hold of her thighs, fingers wrapping around a significant portion of their circumference, distracting her terribly but then he lifted her up and she tilted down through the window, reaching out with her hands to brace herself. It was a bit further than she expected though and as her body leaned forward, her centre of gravity shifted and she slithered out the window in a heap, reminiscent of a calf being birthed, landing on the concrete of the wet car park floor in a messy heap.
