Unleashed: A Hamilton Christmas Novella Page 3

  She’d felt his hands on her, and though his clothes hung a bit loosely on his frame, there was doubtful a spare ounce of fat to be found on the man. It wasn’t fair that he could look like that and talk about cookies. “Right where they need to be,” she said. “Out of my undisciplined reach.”

  He lifted his free hand up, and for a split second, she thought he was going to touch her face, but he just snagged the strap of one of the satchels, which doubled as her laptop bag. “You need help,” he said, as he straightened, his face having come far too close to hers. He smelled good. Really good. So unfair. What had she and her perfectly innocent hormones done to deserve this kind of torture, anyway?

  “Well,” she said, sliding out from between him and the car and stepping back out into the open area of the garage. “I guess I’m lucky you’re here, then. I really appreciate you lugging that stuff in for me.” She should take at least the laptop off his hands, but decided retreat was the better part of saving herself from doing something really embarrassing, and all but fled back to the kitchen.

  Trevor entered a minute later. “You’re sure this is it?”

  “Yep,” she said, busy putting on the dogs’ jackets and leads again for their last trip out for the night.

  “Could you do me a favor, then?”

  She looked up warily.

  “I was going to pull my rental into the garage to keep it out of the storm. You’ll need to set the alarm code for it anyway. I don’t know the current one. Anyway, if you’ll go out there and open the doors so I can pull in, then we can set it for the night.”

  Emma didn’t want to think about spending the night with Trevor Hamilton. Well, not with Trevor Hamilton. But under the same roof. Even one as big as this one. “Uh, sure. But, can it wait until I get back in? They’re all ready to go and—”

  “No, no problem. I’ll just pop this stuff in your room. Where are you set up?”

  It was silly, because, in the big scheme of things, who cared? But she didn’t want him in her bedroom. If she knew where it happened to be. Which she didn’t. “I’m—actually, can you just wait for me to get back in? Don’t worry about my stuff. I’ll take my own bags up.” Or over. Or wherever they were supposed to go in this rambling monstrosity of a mountaintop mansion.

  She glanced back as she led the dogs through the French doors into the Florida room in time to see him lift those broad shoulders and shrug her bags gently to the floor, then wander over to the massive fridge instead.

  Sighing in relief, for the moment, anyway, Emma turned and opened the door to the backyard, only to be met by a wall of stinging sleet and pellets of ice. She started to retreat back into the closed-in porch, but Martha was already pulling her out into the now blistering storm. Jack wasn’t as enthusiastic, but trudged along, head ducked. Emma flipped the hood up on her fleece-lined canvas coat and kept her head ducked, too, as she led them to the edge of the trees. “Here, guys,” she said, having to raise her voice over the cracking sound of the storm as the ice and sleet pummeled the trees and ground. “Not going up that hill in this.” She had her good hiking boots on, and they had great traction, but ice was ice. She’d have to look in the addendum section to see if there was a note about where she might find a bag of gravel or something to throw around, at least in the backyard.

  Maybe Trevor knows, she thought. No. If she was lucky, he’d have already fixed a sandwich or something and gone to bed. Wherever that was. A vicious gust drove the ice pellets sideways, hitting her cheek as she tried to corral the dogs back toward the house. And even that didn’t stop her from picturing Trevor in bed. Getting ready to get in bed. Possibly taking a shower before going to bed.

  “Come on,” she shouted to the dogs, perhaps a bit more loudly than absolutely necessary, then all but dragged them back inside. “My God, it’s nasty out there, isn’t it?” she said, talking to them as she took their jackets and leashes off and toweled them down. Poor Jack was trembling, not enjoying the rubdown nearly as much as he had last time. She crouched in front of him and worked the ice from his paws. “I’m sorry, little guy. It sucks to be a small dog in a big storm, I know.”

  Martha was licking at the ice clumps in her paws, but otherwise didn’t seem to be all that adversely affected.

  “Wow, check that out,” came a male voice almost directly overhead. “The storm’s really picked up.”

  She prided herself in not even glancing up as Trevor’s jean-clad legs passed by her lower line of vision. A mere tip of the chin would have put her eyes right in line with his—“Sorry, fella,” she told Jack, forcing her attention to stay exclusively on finishing up with Jack’s ice-clumped feet. “I know it hurts.”

  “Maybe it’s too late to get my car in, it’s probably encrusted by now. But I’d like to at least go check.”

  She finished with Jack and had to stand to attend to Martha, who had already taken care of the worst of things with her big feet. Emma rubbed her head, neck, and legs down with a dry towel. “Suit yourself,” she said to Trevor, completely unconcerned. Completely unconcerned that they were going to be stuck in this house—together—for possibly longer than one night.

  Right.

  Just as soon as she stopped thinking about him naked in the shower, she’d be unconcerned.

  “Here,” he said, reaching out to take the towel from her hands. “I can finish drying her off if you’ll—”

  “Just because I was just out there does not mean I’m heading out to check on your car. You want it in the garage, I’ll be happy to—”

  “Did I ask you to go out there? All I need you to do is open one of the garage doors.” He tugged the towel out of her grudging grip.

  “Fine,” she said, knowing she sounded like a shrew, but he did things to her equilibrium she really didn’t appreciate. Too bad if he didn’t understand that. She wasn’t about to explain it to him. She left him with the dogs and headed down the passageway to the garage, then realized she’d forgotten the Hamilton bible with the garage code and turned around to head back. A second later two things happened almost simultaneously. The lights flickered out, casting her in immediate full darkness…and she ran chest first into Trevor Hamilton.

  “Hold on there,” he said, finding her arms easily despite the complete lack of light.

  “The lights,” she said. “What happened?”

  “The storm, I’m guessing. Ice is heavy. It probably coated the power lines and took some of them down.”

  “Generator?” Surely a house as massive as this one had a backup system, but she didn’t recall reading anything about one in the book.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never been up here when the power went out.”

  She suddenly realized she was still standing deep inside his personal space, and that he still held her arms. “I—I need to get back to the kitchen, make sure the dogs and Cicero aren’t freaked out.”

  “Yeah, I guess my car isn’t going to come inside out of the cold after all.”

  “Do you need anything from it?”

  There was a pause and she could have sworn it wasn’t a comfortable one, but given that she couldn’t see even a glimmer of his face, she couldn’t really tell.

  “Nothing that can’t wait until morning.”

  Whatever awkward pause Emma thought she’d detected was lost in the sudden intimacy of having a man talking about being there in the morning, his voice all deep and sexy, when they were—once again—all caught up inside each other’s personal space. Yeah. She really needed to stop that.

  Clearing her throat, she stepped back, bumped into the passageway wall, stepped forward again, bumped into Trevor, who was reaching out to steady her. “Sorry,” she said, frustrated and, when he just chuckled, a little embarrassed. So much for getting outside the fog that seemed to envelop her every time he was near.

  “Not to worry,” he said. He held on to one of her arms, then turned and pulled her hand to his waist. “Here, grab hold and we’ll feel our way back to the kitchen
.” He pushed her hand so it slid down the rock-hard side of his torso to where his belt was looped through the waistband of his jeans. “Got me?”

  If he only knew. Rubbing her hands all over him…not exactly helping her out at the moment. That he didn’t seem remotely aware of the personal nature of this kind of contact, or what it might be doing to her, didn’t make her feel much better, either. Apparently she was the only one who went into some kind of hormonal stupor when the two of them were close. Not all that surprising really, but still.

  “Yeah,” she said, then cleared her throat when the word came out as a croak. “Go ahead. We need to check on the dogs.”

  Her eyes had adjusted a little to the dark, but with almost no natural light filtering into the passageway, she couldn’t make out much more than his shadow in front of her.

  She could feel his body heat through the fabric of his shirt, and how lean and hard his waist was as he moved in front of her. And how much she’d love to run her hands around to the front, to what was certainly to be his equally hard and flat stomach…then he’d pause, reach down and cover her hands, pull them more tightly around him, stop, and slide them around his waist, before tipping her chin up so he could dip his own down and—

  “Watch your step,” he said, quite abruptly interrupting her little fantasy. “Kitchen straight ahead.”

  She jerked her hand away. “I—I think I can take it from here. I have an emergency flashlight in my bag.”

  “Handy. Why don’t you turn it on and we can root around for some candles or something, so you don’t burn your batteries out.”

  “I’m just going to get Cicero settled, make sure the dogs are okay, then find my room.”

  They bumped their way into the kitchen, where they were greeted by the cold noses and the enthusiastic whining of both dogs.

  “Welcome!” Cicero called, sounding a bit panicky as he rustled in his cage.

  “It’s okay,” Emma said, as she rubbed Martha’s body and crouched down to scratch Jack behind the ears. She stumbled her way to the counter and groped along, looking for her bag, but couldn’t find it. “I know I left it right here.”

  “Left what?”

  She jumped a little when she realized Trevor was right behind her. “My bag, with the flashlight.”

  “Oh, you meant your shoulder bag? You—uh, I think you have it on your shoulder. At least you did when you walked out of the kitchen earlier.”

  Even as he said it, she realized he was right. In all the commotion, she’d sort of managed to forget that little bit of information.

  “I can’t find my glasses when they’re on my own head,” he told her, as she groped around inside her bag for the flashlight.

  She appreciated him trying to make her feel better, but he didn’t know everything that had been going through her mind back there in the pitch black hallway. “You wear glasses?”

  “For reading. Why?”

  “No reason, just…no reason.” He struck her as this perfect, godlike specimen, so it just didn’t jibe that anything about him wasn’t functioning at one hundred percent. She wisely kept that part to herself. She found the flashlight and pulled it out, switched it on, casting them both in a small pool of yellow light.

  “Not exactly industrial size,” he said, looking at the tiny beam. “But it should do the trick.”

  “I—it’s for reading.” She started to explain that she liked to read and that she always carried a little flashlight as a sort of book light, but he already thought she was a dork. No need to give him further reason to be amused at her expense. “But it comes in handy for all sorts of things. I had a flat tire not too long ago in the middle of the night and—” She stopped. She was babbling. She never babbled. “Anyway, I’ll sit it here on the counter and take care of the bird, if you want to look for candles.” She propped it on its end so the beam of light cast upward, but it was so small, the glow didn’t really reach very far.

  “Why don’t you take it and go cover Cicero for the night and get him settled, then I’ll take it and root around in the cupboards.

  “I’m surprised there isn’t a generator,” Emma said. “In a house this size, out this far from town, I’m guessing power going out isn’t entirely unusual.”

  “Maybe there is one but it has to be turned on manually.”

  “I don’t recall seeing it in the book or addendums, but—”

  “You mean the notebook you were carrying earlier?”

  “Yes. Your Uncle Lionel compiled it, or had it compiled, to help guide me through my stay here.”

  “And there are addendums?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said, then realized she hadn’t sounded entirely kind, and hurried to add, “but it can never hurt to have too much information.”

  Trevor chuckled. “Don’t worry, you didn’t offend. Lionel is nothing if not thorough with his attention to detail. At least when it suits him, anyway.”

  Emma looked over at him. He was rummaging through the drawers that were closest to the light. She wondered what he’d meant by that last part. There’d been a slight edge to the dry amusement. She turned back to Cicero. “Okay, big guy, let’s get you your evening treat.”

  “Snack for Cicero! Cicero is a pretty bird.”

  He sounded a little less panicked, but still not settled. “Yes, yes, you are.”

  She grabbed the plastic container from the little cupboard next to his cage and fished out a piece of dried mango. She fed that to him and watched him hike it all the way down to his water dish, dunk it carefully a few times, then scoot down the rung to the middle of his cage and quietly enjoy his soggy feast. She changed his paper from the sliding tray beneath the cage, dumped it in the trash, then turned around and put her hands on her hips. The dogs had all but shadowed her every step since she’d come in the kitchen and were right behind her, looking at her expectantly. “I’m guessing you guys want to come with me.”

  Martha enthusiastically bumped her head into Emma’s stomach, while Jack wriggled around her ankles, his tail slapping back and forth. “Well, we need to find out where we’re bunking in first.” She really wished she’d done that first upon arriving, but it was too late to worry about that now.

  Cicero was done with his snack, so she said her good nights and covered him up, heard him fluff his feathers out, and relaxed a little. One down, anyway. She walked back over to the counter. “Any luck?”

  “No,” Trevor said, his head buried in one of the lower cupboards. “Mind sticking around here for a few minutes and letting me use the flashlight to finish looking in the cupboards and pantry? One candle and I’m good.”

  “Go right ahead.” She handed him the flashlight and watched him as he turned his back on her and began systematically going through drawers and cupboards. This left her time to wonder how she’d ended up stuck in a house with a man who did things to her libido that should be illegal, when she was supposed to be stuck only with a couple of dogs and an unruly parrot. Why her? She scooted onto a stool, sighed, and propped her elbows on the counter.

  “That was a particularly plaintive sigh. Am I keeping you from something?”

  She hadn’t realized she’d made a sound, but she really couldn’t be faulted for it. Didn’t he know how ridiculously attractive he was? Didn’t he know that when he bent over like that to look through the lower cupboards, his jeans cupped a rear end so fine it was male model worthy? Didn’t he know that she’d spent the last seven months building her business, leaving her no time for men of any kind? Much less the kind with magazine-cover asses? “No,” she finally managed, when she realized she hadn’t answered him. Because she was staring. Again.

  “Not finding much,” he said, and straightened. “Why don’t I lead you to your room, get you settled and see if maybe there are any candles in there so you can have some lighting, then borrow this”—he waved the flashlight around—“and dig around a little more.”

  Oh, great. Trevor Hamilton was going to be in her bedroom after all. While she w
as in it. That’s what she needed. Well, that was exactly what she needed, or wanted anyway, but she doubted he’d be on board with the suggestion, especially as he’d so quickly shot down her earlier assumption that he’d been looking for temporary companionship. “Sure.” She slid off the stool, slapped her thigh so the dogs fell in beside her, hefted her nylon bag and reached for her other duffel.

  “I’ll get these.”

  She didn’t bother arguing. With her luck she’d swing around a corner and take out some eighth-century figurine or something. Better if he was the one who took that risk. At least he was family.

  “Where are we headed?” he asked, hovering at the entrance to the front hallway.

  “I haven’t a clue. I looked at the map earlier, but—” She stopped short of telling him she’d gone off exploring in the opposite direction. She didn’t need him reporting to Lionel that his sitter had been snooping. “I think I got turned around.”

  He slid one bag to the floor. “Here, let me look at the map.” He held out his hand for her notebook.

  She hesitated.

  He smiled. “Trust me, I’m not interested in Lionel’s dog-sitting mandates and endless house rules.”

  What are you interested in? She shoved the book in his hand, thankful she’d managed not to say that out loud. In her head it had sounded sexily suggestive. Best she’d left it right there.

  “Good God,” Trevor murmured, juggling the book and the flashlight.

  “You’re skimming.”

  “Is there an index to this thing? How long are you staying, anyway?”

  “Twelve days. And the section on my accommodations is in the front.”

  “Ah. Says here you can choose any room in the upper east wing.” He looked up. “You were in the west wing when I found you.”

  She shrugged casually. Or so she hoped. “I’m better with left and right than east and west.”

  He eyed her for a moment longer, then flipped the book shut and handed it to her. “Follow me.”

  As they left the kitchen for the front hall, the air got noticeably cooler.

  “Uh-oh.”