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He looked as if he might have been fashioned out of a hatchet or sword, all planes and angles, all solid. Not only deeply, inarguably male, but very much as if he might at a moment’s notice turn himself into a weapon.
Or already was one.
Rory had no idea why looking at him made her knees feel weak.
“Do I need to call the police?” he asked in the same cut-steel voice.
Rory told herself that his voice was getting to her because he was speaking French. That was all. It was flawless French, though she could hear the hint of an accent, and she always had to play catchup when people were speaking French. Even though she’d imagined herself fluent after all her years of studying the language in high school and college.
“I understand French,” she told him. Maybe a little hopefully. “But I’m much better in English.”
“Forgive me,” the man said with exaggerated patience. He still stood there, taking up the entirety of the arched stone doorway and all of the oxygen in the room, and he didn’t look as if he was all that interested in forgiveness. “I cannot think of a single reason why an American should be in my home at all. Much less in this room.”
He said all of that in English. So that she could be certain to hear the derision in his voice when he saidAmerican, Rory assumed. But that made this interaction feel something like normal, so she beamed at him.
“I’m happy to clear that up,” she said brightly. “I’m your cleaning service.”
“You do not look like a service. You look like a single person. And one who is not where she ought to be.”
Everything about his voice and that cool, assessing way he looked at her made her heart kick around inside her chest. It made that warm thing expand, hot and unwieldy and barbed, almost.
As if he was electric. And inside her, somehow.
“I’ve been cleaning this property for months,” she told him, as if that should make him feel better about her invasion of his privacy.
“Have you indeed.”
It didn’t sound like a question, but she took it as one anyway. “I have. I hope you’ve noticed the care I’ve taken with your things. That’s part of what we promise at CleanWorks.”
“And were my instructions unclear in all this time?”
There was something about the way he continued to stand there that should have scared her, she thought. He was so still. So focused.
So...intent.
But instead, the warmth in her turned into a blast of heat. And it made her pussy ache.
“There were six pages of instructions for this property,” she said, trying not to stammer as unfamiliar sensations flowed through her. Her breasts felt heavy. She could feel her nipples harden. She thought she might even besweating.“Single-spaced. To be honest, I skimmed them.”
An expression moved over his face that she thought might have been laughter, if he’d been someone else. On him it looked like a storm.
“You skimmed. And you feel comfortable telling me this as you stand here in the middle of the room I expressly forbade you to enter.”
“The door was open.” She shrugged casually, as if she felt in any way relaxed or at her ease while her lungs stopped working and her whole body was...freaking out. “I thought maybe that meant you wanted it cleaned this time.”
“No,” he said. With quiet conviction. “You did not think that.”
His words seemed to fill the room. Or maybe it was the way he looked at her, those dark blue eyes so intent that she nearly collapsed to the floor and started blurting out confessions. Anything to make him stop looking at her like that.
But he didn’t stop. And to her astonishment, she felt herself flush. She felt her cheeks get hot, and somewhere in her belly, she felt a little curl of shame.
Which was even more unusual than the heat everywhere else.
She opened her mouth to protest, but he stopped her. He did something with his head, barely shaking it at all. He just looked as if hemightshake his head, and whatever she’d been about to say died unsaid.
“I will ask you not lie to me,” he said.
In that same quiet voice that was all steel. Steel that didn’t have to flash or carry on—it was just steel.
