Chapter Two
KING Paxton looked up from his computer screen, jarred by a sudden crisp and eerie silence, the first of his experience in this godforsaken hellhole. No construction sounds. No wailing wind. No bickering workers.
Just a goddess in the great hall.
King gave his ogling crew a fierce scowl, but they stood rooted, all gazes locked on Real-Life Barbie. And no wonder, considering the man magnet’s startling effect.
Great guns, he needed his libido coming out of hibernation like he needed a root canal, but he appreciated the rare sense of peace washing over him, though its origin puzzled him. In his experience, peace and sexual attraction did not go hand in hand. And it didn’t make sense to explore the anomaly or its ramifications, because he couldn’t act on either. As heir to this creepy kingdom, he needed to get this castle fixed and off his hands, without interruption.
King stalked the man magnet’s way, invaded her space, and towered over her—a move that had broken better men—but the goddess refused to step back or break eye contact, while the scent of a lush summer garden encircled him.
“Quite an intense, off-with-their-heads look you’ve got going here,” the intruder said. “Drawbridge, moat, and all. Gonna put me on the rack in the dungeon?”
Damn. He had to respect a woman who could mock intimidation. “This is a construction site. You’re keeping my men from doing their jobs.” King gestured toward the salivating assembly.
She turned and winked at them. “Go back to work.” And damned if his men didn’t get to work . . . in accord . . . for the first time since he started this money-sucking project.
Yes, he’d inherited the bloody fortune the old pirate who built this place had amassed, but he was pissing it away by the second, here. And he did not need a showstopper . . . well, stopping the show. “This is a closed construction site, as in ‘dangerous to the general population.’ How’d you get past my guards?”
The goddess raised her chin. “Never underestimate the power of cleavage.”
King’s attraction upstaged his irritation while his blood headed south. Avoiding the rush, he turned to his crew. “My foreman will show you out.”
His foreman neither moved nor blinked.
“I said,” King repeated, eyeballing his right-hand hulk, “Curt will show you the door.”
“I know where the door is, Einstein. I just used it to come in.”
Curt offered his arm, but with a lethal smile, the man magnet refused and made the brick linebacker blush, her blonde hair shifting like sea waves in a salty breeze, the sight and scent embedding peace like shrapnel into the air around them.
King swore inwardly. He’d surrounded himself by yes-men and knew what to do with them. But damned if he knew what to do with the leggy blonde in red spikes, short shorts, and form-fitting Proud to Be Awesome V-neck tee, invading his castle, undermining his authority, diminishing his sanity, and refusing to budge.
Normally, he respected the use of sex appeal—under controlled conditions—and in other circumstances, he might request further . . . credentials. But her timing sucked.
He didn’t need anything else getting in the way of fixing this bad-luck money pit and selling it before it caused more grief. He wished to hell he could get it off his hands as fast as he did every other high-end property he bought and restored.
Logic, good sense, and good business told him to cut free, and fast, but a secret, rebelliously undisciplined part of him—the part he struggled to keep firmly in check—wanted to embrace the legacy of the castle and find the fundamental peace inherent in its structure and location.
Peace, he’d spend his last dime to find. Hell, he was beginning to see it in this woman like a mirage, but he’d never find peace in a sexy diversion and provoking schedule glitch, blonde goddess or not. Besides, the castle’s tortured past ground peace into the dust on every surface.
Everyone who walked into the place seemed to argue—the only reason he didn’t fire his bickering crew. Dissension had conspired for generations against anyone who entered here, as if this eerie madhouse—now, suddenly and amazingly silent of the wind wailing like a ghoul—refused to cooperate.
And if that wasn’t insane, King didn’t know what was. Yes. Yes, he did. Insane was being magnetically—and he meant that literally—attracted to hot little miss sexy pants with attitude. Hell, she had his men drooling instead of arguing. Screw that, she had his blood making a U-turn, so the loss to his brain made him dizzy. “Out!” he shouted, pointing the way.
Make-Me Barbie folded her arms and raised a brow.
“Have it your way,” King said, lifting her—ramrod straight—off her feet and carrying her out the door, her fine ass filling the palm of one happy hand, her tight shirt riding low at its neck and high at her waist, so he couldn’t help but eyeball her lush breasts while the raw silk of the skin at her waist burned his fingers and threatened to cut him off at the knees.
He moved fast, certain nothing could keep her quiet for long, not even shock. Steam rose between them where their bodies touched, the sizzle in their bold eye-to-eye causing a jolt of pure sexual energy.
Like the sea, her eyes changed color with her mood. He watched it happen. A bright aquamarine glint fit the mischievous smile she’d given his men, but when fury replaced shock, her eyes took on a stormy sea shade, more green than anything, then a muted gray blue rolled in like a fog when the heat of their connection hit her.
Their connection? He set her down with a teeth-jarring thud. “Sorry.”
“Sorry?” she snapped, her latent blush ruddy. “Who do you think you are? King blooming Kong? Get your hairy, gorilla hands off me. I hate being touched.”
The hell she did, but he’d forgotten to let her go. Damn. He retrieved his hands so fast, he saluted and did an about-face. Only thing to do now: retreat with mock dignity.
Safe inside the castle—a ludicrous oxymoron—King closed the iron bound door . . . on his lust and the intruder’s outrage, both too perilous to consider. Aghast at the botch he’d made of showing her out, he dug deep into the cooler for a soft drink, wiped his face with an icy hand, and took a cold swig, almost relieved the sexpot was gone. But before he took another, the crew’s arguments resumed as did the wind’s demented wail.
King swore and turned back to his computer, but the doors squealed open behind him, and silence cut the familiar tumult to a spine shiver.
Dread and elation warred for prominence as he turned.
She was ba-ack.
He pointed her way out.
The siren in spikes folded her arms and stood her ground. “There’s a For Sale sign outside.” Her chin of pure stubborn came up. “I’m a prospective buyer. I’d like a tour, please.”
King looked from her to his amused, newly distracted men and figured that nothing constructive would get done . . . unless he got “trouble” the hell out. He swore, anticipated her sidestep, and swept her off her feet, removing her in the way a groom carries his bride over the threshold—God help him.
He tried not to enjoy her elbow jabs to his chest, the shape of her kicking legs, or the feel of her corn silk hair beneath his arm at her back. Hell, he tried not to inhale her spellbinding scent.
He took her farther from the castle this time, set her down easy, and let her go without a commanding order. But like a horny teen high on hormones, he caught her eye and imagined a game of sex for sport, her on his team, and on that treacherous thought, he headed back to the castle.
“You’re making a mistake,” she called after him. “I can be a team player. I can even be the cheerleader. Give me an O.”
The castle doors shut on the sight of her, cheerleading arms in the air, breasts pointing his way. King’s heart raced faster and louder than the wind’s newest wail. What the? He thinks of sex as a team sport, and she says she can be a team player? A cheerleader? Give me an O for . . . orgasm? He freaking wished. Talk about scary, like fate, or kismet, or . . . disaster. Sex for sport with that one would be like sailing on the Titanic.
Meanwhile, the wail now cut through his headache like a saber, nearly but not quite eclipsing his crew’s renewed bickering. “Son of a sea witch!”
His foreman came up to him. “There’s something about that woman.”
“Yeah,” King snapped. “She’s stacked. Great rack, nice ass. Dime a dozen. What’s your point?”
Curt rubbed his nose to hide his grin, and King cursed himself for showing his colors.
“The air seems to change when she comes in,” Curt said. “The place feels . . . sociable. Even the wind quiets down . . . like it wants her here. And the crew? Did you see them working together for a couple’a minutes there? Both times?”
“Impossible.” King frowned.
“Bet you a day’s pay.”
To add to Curt’s challenge, the wind wailed louder than King remembered, even as a boy when it scared the starch out of him, until he realized that the castle, or its wind, or both, wouldn’t hurt him, which it/they/she didn’t . . . until he became a man.
The howl now became so strident, dust streamed from the age-ravaged ceiling, sending the crew running for cover. What kind of wind could rattle a ceiling in a structure with granite walls three feet thick?
King eyed the castle doors, swore, and went after the sexy interloper, wishing to hell he wasn’t glad for the excuse to get her back, however ludicrously lame.