Serena Bell - Hot and Bothered

3

“WHAT THE HELL were you thinking?”

There was something so incongruous about seeing Haven Hoyt in Queens, standing in the foyer of his apartment building, that it took him a moment to realize she was yelling at him. The hangover wasn’t helping.

“Are you the most self-destructive human being on Earth?”

He almost answered her before he registered that her questions were rhetorical. “Did you come all the way out here to ask me that? Couldn’t you have called?”

It was Saturday morning. Last night, Mark had walked as fast as his legs could carry him away from Mad Mo’s and drowned his sorrows in shots of tequila at Over the Border. Countless shots of tequila. He’d gotten kicked out for harassing the bartender when she refused to serve him one more.

Haven crossed her arms. “I thought this bore discussing in person. Plus, I was so irritated with you that I needed to haul myself out here to burn off steam. Why do you live in Queens?”

“Because there’s not enough room on the island of Manhattan for me and all my self-destructiveness.”

A smile flirted with Haven’s impeccably made-up face and vanished just as quickly. “Seriously, Mark, are you off your rocker?”

“Nope. I am totally sane. Pete Sovereign is, in fact, the biggest douche bag on Earth.”

“Douchier than you? Because you’re looking pretty douchey right about now. Throwing away a reunion tour and hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of dollars. Screwing yourself and me out of a job.”

Righteous fury made her even more beautiful. She kept tossing that glossy black hair, which she was wearing down today. It was perfectly straight and it looked like satin. Haven Hoyt was possibly made of satin from head to toe. Right now, he wanted to rub his entire greedy self all over her.

He caught himself mindlessly staring and attempted to corral some brain cells. “I take it you heard from Jimmy.” Of course. Jimmy would have been on the phone to dismiss Haven almost before Mark’s back had disappeared through the door. They’d have been glad to wash their hands of him, glad to have their low opinion of him confirmed.

“Jimmy called me this morning to, effectively, fire me,” she said.

He hadn’t wanted Haven to share the low opinion of him, though. That brought a mild sense of regret into his pounding head and foggy brain.

She teetered in strappy shoes with impossibly high, skinny heels. Not the right shoes for storming out to Queens in a temper. It was a good trek to his Sunnyside studio from the 7 line. This woman had impressive ankle strength and toe endurance.

Jesus, there was nothing sexy about either of those things. This was the twenty-first century, and naked feet were no longer the frontier. And yet, weirdly, he was turned on. Probably he would find her elbow sexy, or her toenail clippings, or—

He cast the closest thing he had to prayer skyward. If there were a remote possibility that he’d ever get to sleep with her, he wanted her to wear those shoes in bed.

“Haven, honestly? You should be glad to wash your hands of me.”

She glared at him. “Can you let me be the judge of what I should be glad about? I wanted this job. I’ve been trying to show Jimmy what I can do for years. I need referrals from him.”

“Well, then, I’m sorry. But I can’t work with Pete Sovereign.”

Even before the words were all the way out of his mouth, in the sober, hungover, head-splittingly bright light of day, he remembered that he had very few choices. And he didn’t like the pitying way Haven was looking at him, head tilted to one side. As if he was too pathetic to be believed.

“What happened between you and that guy?”

There was no way he was going to tell her. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall.

She sighed. “Fine. Don’t tell me. I’ll just take your word that it was a big enough deal that you can let your dad rot because you’re too proud to issue some meaningless apology.”

He closed his eyes.

He could hear her breathing. Fast. Maybe the walk from the 40th Street station, maybe anger. With his eyes closed, he could imagine that was what her breathing would sound like if he got her worked up. If he licked around the rim of her ear, along the line of her neck, and down the curve of a breast.

Now he was breathing fast.

“You’re going to have to find a way to work with Pete Sovereign.”

His eyes flew open. Apparently, she was steel under all that satin. He could see it in her shoulders, in the hardness of her eyes. “It’s none of your business.”

“Too bad. I want this gig, and you’re the gig. I begged Jimmy to give you one more chance. I begged on your behalf. You owe me this.” Her eyes were challenging, her hands on her hips now.

“No. No way. I didn’t ask you for anything and I don’t owe you anything. I don’t even know you.” Even if I have undressed you in my mind several times since the first time I laid eyes on you.

“This isn’t negotiable.”

“There’s no negotiation, Haven.”

“There’s me, standing here and telling you, you have to do this. Also, there’s your dad. You said he needs a lot of physical therapy.”

“Tons,” Mark admitted. “Every day.”

“And the nurse.” She said it matter-of-factly, with the same sympathy that always undid him.

He couldn’t speak. He just nodded.

“Mark. It doesn’t have to be the world’s most heartfelt apology. It just has to be an apology. This time I’ll be there when you deliver it.”

She’d moved from steel to supplication, and he could already tell it would destroy his resolve—that, and the implacable reality of his father’s debt. Mark was crumbling inside, and there were no inner reserves with which to shore himself up. Haven’s compassion had started his undoing, somehow, on Thursday. It was always the urge to let down your guard that killed you in the end.

“I don’t want you there when I deliver it.” As good as surrender.

“Well, tough luck,” she said. “After last night’s fiasco, I promised Jimmy I’d stick close to you for anything that might attract public attention until the tour.”

Stick. Close. To. You. His pulse kicked up. “You agreed to follow me around for six months?”

“If that’s what it takes.”

“You really want this gig. You begged Jimmy Jeffers. You came all the way out here and—” He wasn’t sure what to call what she’d done to him. Bossed. Pleaded. Unleashed something he wished she’d left pent up.

She didn’t quite meet his eyes. “Yes.” She scuffed the toe of her shoe lightly along the floor, and his eye followed the line of her leg. Today’s skirt was more standard issue, black and midthigh length. Nice, lean, strong thighs he’d like wrapped around his waist.

“I like a good challenge, and you want to do this because you love your dad. And maybe because you’ve done nothing for the last ten years but play wedding gigs and make cameo appearances for screaming groupies. I can’t imagine you find that very satisfying.”

You forgot something, he wanted to say, with the same fervor that urged him to put his hands in her hair. I want to do it because you’re going to follow me around for the next six months. And even though I shouldn’t want that, even though it’s suicidally stupid for me to want that, even though you will never mean those looks you give me, I do. I want that.

“No,” he said instead, because she was right. “It’s not very satisfying.”

“So let me help you apologize to Pete Sovereign, okay?”

He understood defeat well. It was his friend. “Okay.”

“And let me help you clean up your act, okay?”