Break My Fall (7 page)

Was she finding it hard to settle in here?

She had only been here a week, maybe she was homesick.

Was she going to leave?

All these niggling doubts and worries started to build in my chest.

Fuck, what was that about?

Lee blushed, and ducked her head, so I couldn’t see those big grey eyes of hers.

It was just as well because her rosy plump lips were calling to me.

I shifted in my chair.

“No, I’m fine,” she assured me.

I relaxed.

“It’s just…” she paused, and looked up at me.

She dragged her lower lip into her mouth, “You’re kind of loud.”

Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

Loud?

What was she talking about?

“I’m gonna take off Kyle,” a voice said from behind me.

I turned around, just as Gemma welded her mouth to mine.

I tensed, understanding the meaning of Lee’s words.

Fuck.

She’d been awake all night from the sounds of me having sex.

How many nights had that happened?

I’d brought three girls back this week alone. I’d had to.

Lee was tempting the shit out of me.

A man had only so much will power.

Gemma stuck her tongue down my throat and I felt like gagging.

I heard the sound of a chair scraping and pulled my face away.

Lee was leaving.

I moved to go after her but stopped myself.

This was the way it had to be, it was better in the long run.

She needed to hate me.

Chapter Five  

LEE

I settled into a comfortable living routine at the house.

On weekdays I got up, went to work, came home and went to bed.

On weekends I did pretty much the same thing, except I replaced work with hanging out with Cam, and more often than not Derek joined us.

We took turns with the cleaning and cooking dinner, with Derek usually ending up taking over the kitchen, and smothering out whoever’s turn it was to cook.

He was working in a kitchen for the summer, and had decided he was the new Gordon Ramsey.

He was the best cook out of the four of us though, so I didn’t tease him about it.

The man made a mean spaghetti bolognaise.

I had even started to enjoy Derek’s witty retorts and jokes, and Cam was fun to live with.

We had fallen back into our old friendship easily.

But Kyle was a jerk.

The man flaunted himself around the place like king of the hill, prancing around the kitchen in his just his jeans, or worse his boxer shorts.

I dutifully ignored him every time he was around, or at least I pretended to.

Cam said Kyle’s job required him to travel a lot, which explained the hours of the day and night he showed up at the house.

However, when he was here he was distracting and a smart-mouth, and the boy had no modesty.

So much for the truce…

He also had no filter on his tongue.

He had a real bad potty mouth.

I decided Kyle was tormenting me on purpose.

He had to be doing it on purpose.

If he wasn’t banging on the bathroom door when I was showering, hollering at me to hurry up, he was blocking my way to the kettle, giving me one his ‘you want it come and get it looks’.

I had gone without coffee most mornings this week, because avoiding Kyle’s half-naked body was much safer than pressing past him.

He would love that, to know that he was getting to me.

The sad fact of the matter was that he was getting to me, in a big way.

I had to pull my thoughts out of the gutter whenever I saw him in his boxer shorts.

Never in a million years would I have dreamt he had a job that required a suit and tie.

It just didn’t seem like the usual attire one wore for a college summer job.

He looked beautiful in a suit, but there was the element of a caged animal when he wore one.

I had thought up a dozen different potential jobs he might do, all of which involved physical work.

He didn’t have the body of a man stuck in an office.

He had the hard toned build of an athlete.

He was all broad shoulders, ribbed muscles, and narrow hips.

Another thing I realized about Kyle, was that he was guarded.

He chatted openly about mundane things like college and his parties, and I’d learned he was finishing his degree in Business Management in the fall.

But he closed up the minute anything more personal was brought up.

I didn’t understand why, but was too intimidated by him to ask.

He had even started showing up at the hotel.

There was a restaurant on the ground floor, and in the past three weeks I had seen him in there on no less than three occasions.

Thankfully, he hadn’t noticed me.

I always managed to hide behind the pillar in the lobby before he saw me.

He was usually having lunch with Rachel, which also made it easier for me to escape unnoticed.

I had started to skip eating in the restaurant and ate outside at the picnic tables, rather than face the obnoxious jerk and his evil companion.

It drove me crazy that he ate at the hotel.

There were dozens of places he could go to eat, but no he had to choose the building I worked in.

On a positive note, I had actually made a couple of friends at work; Linda being one.

She was fabulous and hilarious at times. She’d showed me the ropes in work and had a fantastic sense of humor.

She certainly didn’t behave like a woman in her fifties.

I also liked talking with Mike.

He was one of the bartenders, and only a few years older than I was.

We had met briefly on my first day, and I had bumped into him again at the picnic tables.

He had invited me to sit with him.

I had figured it would be rude to say no, so I sat with Mike.

He had been witty and down to earth and I had actually found him easy to talk with.

The next day I went to beer garden, Mike had brought an extra sandwich for me, and we fell into to a comfortable lunch pattern.

He always seemed to get his break the time as I did, so we ate together.

It was real nice to be friends with a man and not worry about him blowing hot and cold.

That was the way it felt being around Mike; real easy.

He didn’t flirt or make me feel uncomfortable. He was just plain nice.

Mike was attractive in an all-American wholesome kind of way.

He was all blonde hair, brown eyes and sun tanned skin, but he didn’t hold an ounce of the raw sexual magnetism Kyle did.

Where Mike was cute, Kyle was mind-blowingly attractive.

I had decided it was something to do with the way Kyle moved.

He didn’t just walk; he prowled like a wild animal, cool and confident, but full of raw strength and vibrating intensity.

There was an element of danger to him.

He was just so uh…

There were no words in my vocabulary extensive enough to describe him.

He was rude, and obnoxious and breathtakingly beautiful.

He seemed to get a real thrill out of bating me.

And he kept calling me that stupid nickname.

God he was so infuriating.

I hated that I was so attracted to him.

It was purely a physical attraction though; it couldn’t be any more than that, not when he was so mean to me.

The fluttering in my chest when he was near was just biology.

He was beautiful and any girl would feel the same when he spoke, or smiled or laughed…

After many sleepless nights thinking about him, I had decided put my attraction towards Kyle Carter down to two things.

The first, being the fact that he was my first consensual kiss, and the second I was not the only woman to feel like this; Kyle had plenty admirers.

Women swooned over him.

I saw enough of his admirers coming out of his bedroom in the mornings; Rachel being one of the most frequent visitors.

Though it was clear they were not exclusive, there was definitely something strange going on with them.

I watched them when they were together, and it was…odd.

Apart from the fact that Kyle didn’t seem to like her, when Rachel said jump, he said how high.

He did everything she told him, and it really irked me.

He was a jerk to me but it didn’t stop me hating the way she spoke to him.

It was degrading.

KYLE

“Close your mouth dude, you’re drooling.”

I looked away from Lee’s ass to see Derek grinning at me.

“Screw you,” I muttered, lowering my head.

I couldn’t help staring at her; I didn’t think any man could. She was distracting to say the least.

“No, I’d say screw Lee, but you’re not allowed.”

He loved this.

Bastard.

“What was that guys?”

Lee stood up from where she was bending in the refrigerator, and looked over at us.

“Oh Kyle here was just enjoying the view,” Derek said grinning.

I kicked him under the table.

What the fuck was this, the sixth grade?

“It’s a beautiful day after all,” he added, pointing towards the kitchen window.

Smooth.

“Nice one asshole,” I muttered just for his ears, as I kicked him again.

“Dude, quit it,” he moaned.

“Yeah it’s a beautiful morning,” Lee agreed, completely oblivious to the true meaning of Derek’s words.

Thank god.

“So what are your plans for the day? Any hot date lined up tonight?”

God he was sadistic, fucking torture me some more.

“Hardly,” Lee muttered, and I breathed easy again.

I didn’t realize I’d been holding my breath, waiting for her answer.

“Really, why not? It’s Friday, you should be going out and having some fun. I can’t believe a guy hasn’t asked out yet?”

I was going to kick his ass, and enjoy doing it.

Lee blushed and poured some milk into a glass.

“Well you should,” she said quietly, “No one has.”

“I could hook you up with on my friends. They all think you’re hot, especially Dixon.”

Lee spluttered her coffee, as she looked at me briefly before focusing on Derek,

“I’m not sure,” she replied quietly.

He was baiting me out; it was working.

“Ow dude what the hell?” Derek cried, pushing back his chair.

“Oh sorry man, did I step on your foot?”

I stood up and walked over to where Lee was standing.

I purposefully leaned too close to her to get a cup from the cupboard.

She shivered when my chest rubbed against hers, and my ego swelled.

Yeah fuck Dixon, she was aware of me.

“Do you want to go out with Dixon princess?”

I stared straight at her, and she shook her head eagerly.

“Hear that Derek? She doesn’t want to date any of your asshole friends. Leave her alone.”

I had to leave then; getting too close to her was dangerous.

LEE

I made my way down the stairway at the back of the hotel.

It eventually led to a private doorway outside.

It was a much longer route than taking the elevator and cutting through the restaurant, but it was much safer than potentially facing Rachel in the restaurant, or Kyle.

Work was going well.

Linda gave me as many shifts as I wanted, and Mike was the just the sweetest person.

I was looking forward to my lunch hour so I could listen to him regale me with all the gossip on the ground floor.

“Hey, you made it.”

Mike smiled at me from the picnic bench where he was sitting.

“Hey, sorry I’m late.”

I sat on the opposite side of the bench. Mike proceeded to hand me a plastic covered sandwich and a soda.

“It’s just cold cuts of beef today I’m afraid. We’re all out of tuna.”