Nancy Warren - British Bad Boys

Surely she’d felt, as he had, the clobber of destiny, the absolute knowledge that they were each other’s future?

He reminded himself of two things. One, he’d known the woman one single week. Only a madman declared his love so soon. Two, the woman was skittish about men in general and love in particular.

So he’d do something that was foreign to his nature. He’d wait.

When the cab dropped them off, he looked up at his house and said, “Oh, bloody hell.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t leave a light on in the lounge when we left.”

She grasped his arm and whispered. “Do you think it’s robbers?”

He shook his head, hearing his teeth snap together. “Worse.” Of all bloody nights. He ran up the stairs and Rachel followed slowly. “Shouldn’t we call the cops?”

“Not unless you want to arrest my sister for illegal entry into her brother’s flat and impeding his sex life. Which, come to think of it, isn’t a bad idea.”

“Your sister is here?”

“The woman’s got the most amazing bloody timing.”

Rachel glanced back at the cab about to pull away. “Maybe I should find a hotel for the night.”

He grabbed her hand. “No. I want you to meet my sister.” He shrugged, trying to make the best of things. “I’d hoped you’d do it in a more civilized manner, but it can’t be helped now.”

He held onto her hand while unlocking the front door, then, to make absolutely sure it was Chloe and not some lout nicking things, he shouted, “Hallo?”

“Thank God you’re finally home,” Chloe’s voice floated down to him. “I’ve been waiting ages!”

“My sister,” he said, half sorry it wasn’t thieves so he could impress Rachel with his manliness in getting rid of them, and be spared his impetuous sister’s latest turn-up.

She didn’t wait until they’d gotten inside properly before wailing, “I’m not marrying Mario. He’s vile. I threw that utterly vulgar ring back in his face and told him this morning, I won’t marry him. I should have realized when the man gave me a diamond the size of Lithuania that he simply wasn’t for me. I mean, really, it was so over the top that I literally couldn’t lift my arm!” As the words flowed, so did the hope he’d had that she might be here only for a bed.

“Chloe,” he said, and then a little louder when the flow of words wouldn’t dry up, “Chloe. Shut up.”

By this time, he and Rachel had climbed the stairs and his sister’s very pretty and very spoiled face was frozen in a state of surprise.

“Oh, Jack,” she said, in the tone she’d have used if he’d brought her a martini made with gin instead of vodka. “Did you have to bring a woman home tonight? Of all nights?” She gazed at him with her big, violet blue eyes opened wide in an utterly helpless expression that made far too many men weak at the knees, and only warned her brother that trouble was ahead. “I need you.”

“Rachel, please forgive my appallingly bad-mannered little sister. Chloe, this is Rachel. She is a top chef from America who is going to cater your wedding.” He put a slight emphasis on the word is.

“Hello, Rachel,” Chloe said from between pouting lips.

“Hi, Chloe.”

Great. The first meeting of the two women he cared about most in the world wasn’t a rousing success. They hadn’t exactly thrown each other at their respective feminine bosoms and wept for joy.

There was a pause. “You’ll have to forgive me,” said Chloe. “I’m very distraught, having just broken my engagement.” Her voice wobbled on the edge of tears. It was one of her more successful tricks, but he was up to them all and merely crossed his arms at his chest and gave her a don’t try it look.

“I’m really sorry about your engagement,” Rachel said, glancing at Jack. “I’m sure you want to talk to your brother privately. I’ll go and stay at a hotel.”

“That would probably be best,” Chloe agreed, brightening immediately.

“If anyone’s going to a hotel it will be you, little sister. Rachel was invited.”

She was all in black, to suit the drama of the occasion, though he thought she’d gone a bit heavy on the eyeliner. “But I need you.”

“What you need, my sweet, is a man who won’t let you rule him, then drive you mad when he’s not commanding enough.”

She sniffed. “You don’t understand.”

“Probably not. Never mind. I am going to make you some hot milk, put you in the guest room, and take Rachel to bed. In the morning, we’ll talk.”

“Jack,” Rachel said, turning to him with wide, shocked eyes. “How can you be so cruel? Your sister just ended her engagement. Try and be a little supportive.”

Chloe blinked, and suddenly, before his bemused gaze, he saw the instant bonding he’d wanted. She sniffed. “He can be such a beast, my brother, but he’s the only one I could turn to in my hour of greatest need. Don’t let him throw me out.”

He’d offered her hot milk and a bed, not tossed her out on the street, but it didn’t seem to matter. Rachel was promising to stand by his sister and he was clearly to be cast as that horrible brother who didn’t understand. Chloe patted the couch beside her, and soon she and Rachel were seated side by side and Rachel was getting the full benefit of Chloe in crisis mode.

With a shrug, he went into the kitchen and made cocoa, something he’d been doing for Chloe since she broke her first heart at thirteen.

When he returned, the two women were deep into the minute dissection of Chloe’s relationship, with some very good advice from Rachel, who wasn’t as blind to his sister’s antics as he’d feared.

He gave them an hour, because he was a good brother and he loved his sister. But he was also a man blindly in love with a woman he’d recently met, and burning to be naked and intimate with her. Sixty long minutes passed, and the cocoa was nothing but a memory when he began yawning extravagantly and turning out lights.

When that went unnoticed, he said, “All right, Chlo. Let’s get you tucked into the guest room.”

“All right. I mustn’t interrupt your date, must I? Thank you, Rachel. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

His cleaning staff kept the guest room ready and the bed freshly made, and Chloe used his flat like a second home often enough that some of her things were permanently installed, so the only difficult part was actually getting her in the room and getting her new best friend Rachel out again.

Another quarter of an hour and he’d managed it. And finally, finally, he had his woman alone with him in his bedroom.

“Sorry about that,” he said when they had the door shut. Just in case Chloe remembered something else she absolutely must tell Rachel, he surreptitiously locked it.

“It was fine. I liked her a lot.”

“She’s completely spoiled, but deep down she’s very sweet.”

He unwrapped the red shawl Rachel still had round her shoulders, folded it, and placed it on a leather ottoman in the corner.

“Will she really cancel the wedding?” she asked as she unzipped her dress. It struck him that they were acting like a long-term couple, chatting things over while they got ready for bed. He was glad they’d got the urgent shagging out of the way earlier, so he could savor the sight of Rachel undressing before him in this matter-of-fact way that somehow struck him as dead sexy.

Odd, how love changed a man’s view of things.

He’d never found himself filled with such tenderness as when he lay her back on his bed, never found his emotions tangled with his physical desires as he now did.

She lay beneath him, her hair a dark cloud on the pillow around her, her eyes large and serious. He wanted to say things he’d never said to another woman, but he wasn’t sure she was ready. And yet, when he entered her, felt her so hot and wet, clinging to him as though she’d never let go, surrounding him, he felt pulled into her much more than physically.