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Cale walked into the dressing room. He presumed beyond the shut door was the bathroom. ‘Yeah. How you doing in there?’
‘Getting a bit cold.’
‘Hang in there. Not long now.’ Cale looked around her dressing room; in such an intimate space he felt surrounded by her.
‘I see that you still keep the retail sector of the city in champagne and caviar,’ Cale told her through the door.
‘What are you on about?’
‘Your immense selection of clothes. How can you possibly need so many shoes?’ Cale asked as he bumped his thigh against an open drawer and glanced down. Naturally it was her lingerie drawer. Cale swallowed, unable to resist lifting a semi-transparent candy-pink thong that was hardly bigger than dental floss.
‘It’s a girl thing,’ Maddie grumbled. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
‘I won’t even try to,’ Cale assured her.
‘Stay out of my lingerie drawer,’ Maddie warned him.
Cale quickly dropped the non-offending article. How could she know he was… Did she have X-ray eyes?
‘Nothing would fit me,’ Cale joked as he put down his toolbox and placed his hand against the door.
‘Ha-ha. Can you hurry up? I’m getting really cold.’
Cale looked at the hinges on the door and sighed. The hinges were covered in paint—many layers of paint—which would make them difficult to unscrew. He tested the handle on the door, just in case, and heard the click-clack of the faulty mechanism. He thought he heard Maddie’s snort of impatience and didn’t blame her. Crouching again, he assembled his drill and, with plug in hand, stood up to find an electrical outlet. He disconnected the hairdryer and plugged the drill in. Placing himself between the door and the edge of the closet, he felt for the creases that indicated where the screws were and in a few minutes had them in his hand.
Grabbing hold of the wrong side of the door, he pulled it away from the frame and saw Maddie, wet-haired and shivering, a small towel barely covering her from collarbone to crotch.
With her makeup-free face and wide eyes she looked about seventeen.
‘It’s like a fridge in here!’ Cale exclaimed as he stepped inside.
Maddie clutched the top of her towel, her hands white and her bottom lip almost blue. Being so close to her in the tiny bathroom, he could see the fine shivers trembling through her. Cale looked towards the sash window Maddie gestured to.
‘Tell me about it. The cord got jammed ages ago. I’ll have to get it fixed soon.’
‘Why didn’t you get back into the warm bath?’
‘Hot water ran out.’ Maddie shrugged
‘Get dressed,’ Cale ordered. ‘You’re going to get sick.’
Maddie looked towards the door that half stood, half hung in the doorway. She clenched the top of her towel tighter and stepped around him. Yanking some clothes off a hanger, and some underwear from the drawer, she moved into the bedroom.
Cale took a deep breath and looked down through the dressing room into Maddie’s room. In her haste to get warm and out of his sight she’d started dressing in the far corner of the room and he could see her reflection in the dressing table mirror. Unable to pull his eyes away, he watched as she dropped her towel and gracefully pulled on a pair of low-cut panties. Her stomach was gently rounded, her legs long, her hips slim. Cale swallowed as she slid trousers up her legs and reached for a gauzy cream bra and snapped it into place, doing that weird jiggly thing woman did to make sure it fitted exactly right.
Cale swallowed a moan. Since he hadn’t had any action for a while he was surprised that moaning was all he did.
As opposed to lying her on that bed…
‘Cale?’
Cale blinked. She was shoving her arms into a shirt and turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. Stepping back just in time, he leaned against the open sash window.
‘Yeah?’
Maddie appeared in the small area between the hanging door and the frame. ‘Thanks. It was turning out to be a long, cold morning.’
Cale shrugged off her thanks and gestured to the window. He spoke brusquely. ‘You need to get this fixed or else you’ll freeze.’
‘I keep meaning to and I don’t seem to get it done.’ Maddie nibbled at her bottom lip. ‘I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to inconvenience you like this—and on a Saturday morning, too.’
‘Maddie, it’s fine. No worries.’ Cale practically spat the words like bullets.
Her eyes heated and her mouth firmed. ‘Then the least you can do is be gracious about helping me instead of a doing a great impression of a bear with a thorn in its paw!’
Cale closed his eyes as if seeking patience. ‘Can we drop this, please? It’s a stupid conversation.’
Her eyes lightened with frustration. ‘But—’
‘You just don’t know when to shut up, do you?’ Cale burst out, his breath ragged. He stood up and took two steps to reach her. He looked into her desperately pretty eyes and grimaced. ‘Okay, Maddie, see if you can handle this. Pretty, feminine room. Sexy painting. Lingerie. Wet woman in towel. Wet woman getting dressed around the corner. Keep thinking about what I want to do to you in that bed. I want to do you in the worst way possible. Getting the picture yet?’
It almost amused him to see how the tips of her ears and then her cheeks blushed. ‘Oh…’
‘Yeah. Oh.’
Maddie stepped back into the dressing room and leaned against the shelves—yet he still managed to connect most of his body with hers as he slid past. On a low curse, he turned and cupped her face with his big hands.
‘Maddie, look at me,’ Cale commanded.
Maddie curled her hand around his strong wrist and looked up. He saw his desire reflected in her eyes, could feel her jumping pulse in the tips of her fingers.
‘It would be so easy…’
‘I don’t do easy,’ Maddie muttered.
Cale heard her words but they didn’t make any sense. Why was she hedging when there was this heat between them? Didn’t she understand that this was important—all that was important? Cale dropped his hands to her waist. He just had to touch her, had to move closer. Just for one minute…
‘I’m sorry, I just have to,’ Cale said, stepping forward, his hands on her supple back.
Cale heard her groan as she welcomed him into her space, heard her breath hitch and felt her nipples pucker against his chest. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’
‘In your arms or in your house?’
‘Either. Both. This is wrong.’
‘Why?’
‘We’re practically strangers. I don’t know you any more.’
But her eyes said that she had an empty flat, that she wanted to get naked, that she needed him as much as he needed her. How exactly was he supposed to resist?
‘Maddie…’ He drawled out her name. ‘Your mouth is saying one thing and your body another. Which do I listen to?’
Maddie shoved a trembling hand into her hair.
‘What do you want me to say? That I just look at you and all I want to do is strip you naked and throw caution to the wind?’ she said, her voice hoarse.
He frightens me, Maddie thought wildly, her eyes on his. The way he makes me feel terrifies me. He just touches me and I feel complete… I feel him everywhere… Every cell in my body is yelling for him to take me… He feels like… God, he feels like home.
That couldn’t be good.
Cale took a step towards her and placed his finger on the beating pulse-point below her throat. ‘Don’t make me beg, Mad.’
Cale slowly undid the buttons of her shirt and pushed the fabric down her arms to reveal creamy shoulders. He let the shirt drop and she stood there in her semi-transparent bra. After watching her for a long, long minute, Cale stepped towards her and yanked her to him. His mouth slanted over hers as his hands grabbed her bottom and pulled her closer, allowing her to feel the hard erection he could no longer hide. He felt Maddie burrowing her hands under his clothing until she eventually found his skin.
Cale stepped backwards and cursed as he slammed into the doorway. He lifted his head to quickly scan his surroundings and bent his head again, kissing her as he walked her into her bedroom. His mouth nibbled her neck before he turned around, sat down on the bed and pulled her so that she sat across his thighs.
One strong arm banded around her waist, he half lifted her off him to take his car keys and his BlackBerry out of his jeans pocket and place them on the bed next to him. He yanked Maddie back onto his lap and lifted his hands to hold her face. He pushed a strand of hair that kept falling in her eyes behind her ear and traced her mouth with a callused thumb.
His eyes, when they met hers, were serious. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
Maddie closed her eyes. ‘I shouldn’t, but…’
Cale’s palm drifted over her back and his tongue thrust deeper to explore her mouth.
His long fingers were fiddling with the side button of her trousers when the ring of his mobile pierced her sexual fog. She looked past his shoulder and saw the display light up. The name ‘Megan Adams’ flashed on his screen.
She stiffened in his arms and felt the same familiar, burning jealousy she had as a teenager. Karen. Jenny. Amber. He’d been relentlessly chased and she knew that he always would be. She suspected that he often allowed himself to be caught…
‘Saved from my own stupidity,’ she muttered as she pulled back. Clambering off his lap, she pulled the cups of her bra back over her breasts.
Cale—smart man—let his mobile ring to voice-mail. ‘Maddie? What the hell?’
Maddie looked around for her shirt. ‘I’m late and you need to get out of here.’
Cale grabbed the waistband of her pants and held her in place. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what flicked your “off” button.’
‘At least I have an “off” button! You don’t seem to!’
More worrying was that he’d found her ‘on’ button so quickly. He’d liquefied her common sense in ten seconds flat.
‘Oh, God! Here you go again, judging my love-life.’ Cale rolled his eyes. ‘Trust me, you’re making something out of nothing, Mad.’
‘So you say.’ Maddie shrugged in mock insouciance. ‘But, just so we’re clear, I am never going to be a woman who hangs around waiting for your calls!’
‘Uh—I’ll never expect you to be.’
Maddie, feeling his fingers warm against her stomach, walked around his knees and leaned across the bed. She grabbed his mobile and waved it in his face. ‘Like this poor woman!’
‘Who?’
Maddie didn’t need to check the name. ‘Megan! Megan Adams!’
Cale looked puzzled. ‘Megan Adams often calls. So?’
Maddie jerked away, and the look she sent him was hot enough to burn a hole in sheet metal. ‘And she’s okay with you sleeping with other women?’
Cale grinned. ‘She seems to be.’
Maddie knew that he was mocking her and wasn’t quite sure why. It only ratcheted up her temper. Stomping away, she grabbed her shirt off the floor and pulled it on. ‘You’re not funny. Just go, Cale.’
‘You’ve really got the wrong end of the stick, Maddie.’
‘Cale, this is me—remember? I remember the incessant phone calls and the drooling girls with their flicky hair. I know. I was the girlfriend trying to compete for your attention with them!’ Maddie yanked a comb through her still-wet curls. ‘Megan’s just another poor sap desperate for you to take her calls. FYI, I’ve grown up and I will never, ever again be Miss Desperate or Miss Stupid or Miss Waiting-in-Anticipation for you to call!’
Cale stood and picked up his mobile and keys from the bed. She caught his flinty eyes and his tight jaw. He walked into the dressing room, reappearing with his toolbox in hand. ‘No, you now have the title of Miss Closed Mind and Miss Stubborn. Maybe Miss Childish, too,’ he said coldly.
‘Whatever,’ Maddie snapped. ‘And Cale?’
Cale stopped at the door, his fingers white as he clenched the frame of the door. ‘What now?’
‘I know that you were in my lingerie drawer! Where’s my candy-pink thong? Did you take it?’
He found it where he’d dropped it—behind the bathroom door—and tossed the underwear towards her.
‘I’d be happy for you to add it to your collection, but it’s my favourite,’ she called as he stormed out and slammed her front door so hard that the earth tilted off its axis and, Maddie was quite certain, set off an earthquake somewhere in the South Pacific.
BlackBerry Messaging: 16.15.
Cale Grant: Just thought I’d let you know that you’re the first woman I’ve killed in 3 months.
Maddie: What? Standing here watching my bride walk down the aisle. Pretty sure I’m still alive.
Cale Grant: Kissed, not killed! Can’t get used to this new phone. Thought you should know that since you think I’m a man slut. Just clearing the air…
Maddie: Seriously? So, if you haven’t kissed/killed anyone, then you haven’t…? How long since you… you know?
Cale Grant: Not answering that.
Maddie: Curious. Can I still call you Slick?
Cale Grant: You’re laughing, aren’t you?
Maddie: MAO. So… are you waiting for an apology?
Cale Grant: Would you give me one? Anyway, just wanted to clear the air. Now going for a long, long run, followed by a cold, cold shower… unless you’re offering alternative entertainment?
Maddie: Nope.
