Page 69 of Red Flag
I shook my head. “Nope, you’ve been irresponsible, remember? You don’t get a reward for fucking around. I wore them for me. I like to feel put together on race days. Organised.”
He snorted a laugh. “Your organisation covers your underwear, too?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, pulling back an inch with a dramatic frown and pout. “Don’t you want to see how organised I am?”
“Mm,” he said and looked me up and down, his hand already running under my top. His fingertips brushed the boning of my bra. “What if when I see you, I can’t stop? When you drive my car — and I wasn’t lying, it is hot as fuck — I can’t stop?”
“I guess you can earn some type of reward,” I said, pressing further into his touch and running a hand down his muscled chest.
He could wind me up like no other, but when we weren’t talking about work, when he was well-behaved… I couldn’t help how my body reacted to him. How easily I became a puddle of lust.
“I’ve missed you,” he said. “Your body has its own private album on my phone now. I’m glad you can’t see how many hours I’ve spent going through it.”
I laughed and, with his good arm, pulled him off the desk. “Later, you can prove how much you’ve missed me. Until then, let’s get your arm checked out.”
Chapter 16
The medic was right; they were expecting us at the hospital. Nixon was whizzed through and discharged in an hour. No broken bones, no fractures, just a lot of muscle damage. His skin was already blossoming a dark purple.
At hisAirbnb, I ran him a bubble bath. The warm water would soothe his body. Dad always used to run us baths when we were feeling poorly as kids. Mum would shove medicine down our throats.
Nix argued against it, but I wasn’t taking no for an answer. This man would have to deal with me being his carer for just one afternoon.
Worrying over him, I didn’t really take in how imposing the place was. The bathroom was bigger than my living room in London. Out of the bathroom window, there was a pool and a white beach. It was overshadowed by the fluke weather and a filter of dark, grey rolling clouds, but it was a beautiful setting in itself. Cold and depressing in that beauty.
“It’s ready!” I called, tearing my eyes away from the view to turn off the taps.
He came in, wearing just his boxers, a towel slung over his good shoulder. He chucked a jumper at me. “Put that on.”
“What?” I asked, not paying attention to his words. Instead, I was focused on how he was using his bad arm as if it wasn’t the same colour as a blackberry.
“You got wet, too,” he said. “Take off that top; I’m surprised you haven’t got a cold.”
I pulled off theCiclatimerch. Abbe’s coat had saved me from the majority of the rain, but my hair was still damp at the front and the neckline of my top was dark with water. Nix’s jumper smelt like him,amberyandwoodsy.
When it was over my head, he was smiling out of the window. “It is a matching set, then,” he mused.
I chucked the top at him and he caught it, his grin growing. When he smiled like that, I could almost overlook and not worry about the bruises on his shoulder.
“What do you think?” he asked and jerked his chin at the window I’d been staring through.
“It’s pretty magical,” I said. “I’ve never seen a purple sky like this, but I’d love to see it when the weather is better.”
“Well, that’s what I mean,” he said. “It’s for sale.”
“And you’d buy it?”
“Do you think I should?” he asked, using both hands to pull down his boxers.
Over the days we had spent together, I’d seen him naked so many times, but I still turned away on the little wooden stool.
“And here I am struggling to pay my London rent,” I laughed.
When I spoke, he had one foot in the bath but pulled it back out, landing on the bath mat. He lifted my chin to look up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t… I haven’t given up my lease yet,” I explained. “So, I’m still paying for that.”
“You need money?”
