Do Your Worst(49)

She sighed as she pulled the soft material over her head, trying in vain to pluck at it so it wouldn’t settle too closely against her unbound breasts. Wow, it wasn’t scratchy at all. This must be a rich-person sweater. A quick peek at the label confirmed: one hundred percent cashmere.

Okay, time for the sweats. Shaking the pants out, she held them against her legs. Riley gave it fifty-fifty odds that she’d get them on without splitting the seams. Besides a penchant for curse breaking, she’d inherited Gran’s “birthing hips” and an ass to match. Carefully, she shimmied the pants up. While they stretched intensely across her thighs and stuck like cling wrap to everything else, she got them on thanks to the elastic waistband. Phew.

Another bolt of lightning cracked across the sky, making her jump.

There wasn’t room in the shower to hang her towel. She’d have to ask if there was somewhere else she could put it.

“Clark?” Riley knocked gently against the divider to his bedroom.

“Yes?”

She assumed that meant Yes, I’m fully dressed, so she pushed back the divider only to find it very much did not mean that.

She caught him in profile, and for a second the inside of her brain was just Thighs, thighs, thighs. All that taut muscle cut in harsh, heavy lines.

Riley licked her suddenly parched lips.

“Do you mind?” Clark said blandly, sounding more bemused than offended at her attention.

Oh, fuck. She covered her eyes with her hand.

“Sorry.” That’s good, Riley, get caught ogling the enemy.

There was a sound of material in motion as he resumed dressing.

Then, “All done,” he said softly.

When Riley lowered her hand, he wore a tattered rugby shirt and dry jeans, his feet bare.

“I have your towel.” She held it up as evidence.

“Thanks,” he smirked, taking it and spreading the material across the back of the chair in the corner. “Do you need anything else?”

“No. Thank you,” she said awkwardly. He’d already been more generous than she was comfortable with—there was no missing the way her curves were making his nice clothes beg for mercy. “I just need to figure out something to do with this.” She lifted her sodden mass of hair that had started to soak through the shoulder of his sweater.

Clark looked up from where he was hanging his towel. “I could plait it for you, if you like.”

“You know how to braid hair?”

He raised one shoulder. “My nan likes it done.”

“Oh.” She refused to find that endearing. “Okay, then. I guess, if you don’t mind?”

“Have a seat.” He gestured to the foot of the bed.

Riley made her way over and tried to sit as primly as possible for someone whose brain had melted to goo at the sight of her nemesis’s hairy quads.

Clark grabbed a comb from one of the cabinets built into the bookshelf (So he does have one) and then, standing behind her, proceeded to part her hair.

The first press of the comb’s teeth set off her already tingling nerve endings. Riley made herself hold still, keeping her back straight in a callback to his posture when she’d given him a massage.

With their positions reversed, she couldn’t help noticing that for all she’d been trying to break him then, he was careful with her now. Starting at the ends of her hair, patiently working his way through snarls. No matter how many times she pushed him, how many ways she tried to prove she didn’t want coddling, he always found a way to be careful with her. That, more than his condemnation, was hard to shake.

For a few breaths there was nothing but his presence at her back, large and close and warm, and the gentle tugging of the comb at her scalp. Riley didn’t know whether to laugh or whimper. It was maddening, having this man she wanted to loathe constantly find ways to burrow beneath her defenses.

Clark’s knuckles brushed the sensitive arch of her neck as he sectioned off her hair for the braid. Riley’s lips parted. Even though he couldn’t see her face, she felt so exposed, here in his bed, wearing his things, letting him touch her.

She tried to calm herself by taking a deep breath, but of course these clothes smelled like whatever fancy organic detergent he used—fresh but not floral, with a lingering hint of the sunscreen and bug spray he wore. Summer scents that made her think of grilling and swimming and heated, glistening skin.

While he constructed the braid in quick, sure strokes, she sat there helplessly, trying not to focus on the dexterity of his fingers. When the next tug on her hair pulled sharply, Riley let out a soft gasp.

“Sorry.” Clark immediately relaxed his grip. “I’ll be more careful.”

“Don’t bother. I like it,” Riley blurted without thinking.

There was a heavy pause.

Her pulse began to match the wild riot of the storm pounding against the metal roof.

There’s no need to get embarrassed, she told herself, fighting off a mounting urge to panic. So she liked a certain kind of sex. So what? She knew this about herself and had for a while. It wasn’t a big deal.

And sure, it required a partner with certain complementary inclinations, but Riley didn’t expect Clark Edgeware to give her what she needed.

He was English. His people had practically invented repression.

Except he was slowly wrapping the tendrils of her hair more firmly around his fist.