Belting along the landing, he halted for a nano-second as he reached the top of the stairs. He knew the staff went apoplectic when he did his parkour moves around the house, but what the hell? He wouldn’t be around to catch the fall out. He bent his knees, and flung himself into the air.
Whoosh. Nothing like the rush of carved balusters and deep pile carpet spinning past your face at forty miles an hour.
Three flick-flacks, an equal number of thumps and groans from ancient timbers, and he was streaking across the hall, only stopping to hurl open the huge front door.
Tearing wind slapped him head-on as he dashed into the late October cold, his t-shirt flapping wildly. With one leap, he’d cleared the stone steps outside the front door, then the gravel crunched beneath his converse as he sped on towards the grass. He pulled to a halt as he saw a figure alight from the helicopter. Someone slight, bending down now, waving their arms, holding onto their flapping jacket. A woman.
The woman.
Struggling.
He grimaced. She straightened to standing and he got a view as she spun. He clocked a suit and hair pinned back securely enough to resist the turbulence. A cabin bag-on-wheels.
‘Damn you Bryony!’ He was muttering under his breath now. ‘Why the hell have you sent an air hostess?’
He took in endless legs, heels, a nipped-in waist. His eyebrows shot upwards in immediate appreciation, and he heard himself let out a long, low whistle, with no apparent input on his part.
And wow, she was stacked. An air hostess, who was stacked!
Quick re-assessment. ‘Nice work, Bryony!’
But he was still out of here.
He dragged himself back to the scene unfolding in front of him, in apparent slow-motion. The air hostess turned. Huge black glasses, dwarfing a delicate face, took him by surprise, then a smile at least as wide as the Atlantic whacked him somewhere in the solar plexus, and surprised him some more. He felt his hand rise and he gave himself a mental kick as he realised he was waving to her. She lifted her hand off her thigh, and gave an enthusiastic wave in return.
For crazy sakes don’t grin at her you fool!
The last thing he needed to look was welcoming, dammit.
She held her hand aloft, as if she were waiting for his smile before she let it fall, but Brando had stopped thinking about smiling, and instead had his eyes fixed on the hemline of her skirt, flirting in the buffeting wind.
Bingo!
A freak gust tore at the pleats and blasted them skywards. Before she had time to react, the air hostess skirt had twisted inside out, and was billowing, wildly, somewhere around her ears.
‘Nice one!’
Brando’s face cracked into an, involuntary smile. Just what a guy needed to brighten a dreary afternoon. Maybe there was a god after all. Stocking tops, delicious dark knickers, he had enough time to make out the pattern of the lace. He gave a nod of appraisal.
‘Twelve out of ten for that bottom – at the very least.’
A tug at the base of Brando’s stomach, and a constriction of denim in the groin area, indicated that the skirt wasn’t all that was rising.
Resist the urge to help a damsel in distress.
Given he would be leaving as-soon-as, there was no point in complicating the issue. He looked away. Next time he looked she was bent double, her arms wrapped around her knees, skirt firmly in place, feet solidly planted, but her body was gyrating.
She almost looked as though her feet were …
It took two blinks for Brando to know she was about to lose her balance, and one more for him to shoot across the grass, and grab hold of her before she crashed to the ground.
‘Watch out!’
It was a shout, but the helicopter blades spun his words away.
The fact that he’d ended up cradling her bottom in his crotch was incidental. The important thing was he had saved her the embarrassment of a face-plant. Her body jack-knifed against him, stiffened, then the warmth of her soft buttocks passed straight through her skirt pleats, and set his groin on fire.
‘Sorry about … ’
Damn. Now he was pulling her onto a huge hard-on, and the fact that he could feel her breasts folding onto his hands somewhere round her front was making matters worse. From the vibrations in her torso, she was obviously saying something. Still grasping her tightly he pressed his ear closer to her mouth, struggling to hear what she said over the roar of the engines. He was rewarded with a brush with a pillow-soft cheek, and a spiky jab in the eye from her specs.
‘What are you playing at?’
Was that what she was saying?
He couldn’t be sure. He tried to disentangle himself, but felt her lean into him. What the hell? She was pointing to her feet now, twisting, gesticulating, shouting words he still failed to grasp.
He looked down.
Lots of mud, all over her shoes. And those surely had to be eff-me shoes, if ever he’d seen them. And right this moment, his blood was all heading one place, making damn sure he was ready to oblige. Yes Siree!
He needed to get a grip here. A grip of the situation, rather than the woman would be useful. It took a moment to disengage his brain from his libido, then it hit him.
‘You’re stuck?’
She grimaced at him, stuck fast and unable to move with both hooker-high heels firmly impaled in his lawn.
Through the huge lenses of her glasses, her panicky eyes were smoky purple. And she smelled of summer. That was it. Summer.
Summer and sex.
‘Hang on to me!’
He dipped down, shivered as her hands closed around his head to steady herself, then he prised one foot at a time out of her shoes.
And not just any sex, hot sex.
His libido thrust into overdrive, and once more he made a valiant attempt to disengage it, as he wrenched her shoes out of the ground, stood up fast, and rammed them into her hand.
‘I’m just leaving … ’ He was yelling, but she shrugged back at him.
Jeez, he’d come here to get in the chopper, get the hell out of here, or better still, to wave the woman back to wherever she’d flown in from. So why wasn’t he pressing ahead and doing just that? He blinked away the miniscule twitch in his left eye. That tiny giveaway. His unfailing, gut-fuelled instinct kicked in.
‘Looks like this is the only way … ’
As he bent his knees, braced himself, and grasped hold of his air hostess, he saw her eyes go bright with surprise.
When the hell had she become his air hostess?
Up close now, he clocked the strawberry curve of her lips as they parted in astonished protest, and knew he was on the right track. He swung her easily into his arms, and turned, and strode towards the house, with his jaw set. Whatever was happening to him, he was determined to shake it off fast.
* * *
Feet dangling.
Cheek rammed unceremoniously against the rocky shoulder of a man who smelled delectable, and seemed in no hurry to put her down.
Not quite how Shea had planned her entrance to Edgerton Manor.
Her heart was still pounding from the shock of being literally swept off her feet, but at least that had solved the immediate problem of how to cross the sea of mud and reach the house without damaging her shoes