She’d grown up on a remote Scottish island where there were about five thousand sheep to every available guy under sixty. And to say her parents had been a wee bit overprotective would have been putting it mildly. She’d never even been in a man’s bedroom before, let alone a bedroom as vast and well-appointed as this one. And that was without even factoring in the stunning chest currently commanding all her attention.
‘Uh-huh.’ He sounded doubtful.
Then to her consternation, he lifted the T-shirt she hadn’t realised he was holding and tugged it over his head—covering those glorious pecs, the stunning eight-pack, the delicious happy trail, the breathtaking hip flexors.
Her low groan of protest echoed around the room. ‘Ach, no.’
She’d come all the way to New York to find adventure, her mushy brain reasoned. And she couldn’t think of anything more adventurous in that moment than gazing at those perfectly formed pecs for the rest of her natural life.
‘Is there a problem?’ he asked, the tone low with amusement.
The heat spread across her collarbone. He was making fun of her, but, even so, the recklessness that had got her into so much trouble as a teenager had her blurting out the truth. ‘Your chest is so beautiful. Can I gaze at it a wee bit longer?’
Beautiful?
Alex had to stifle a laugh. No one had ever called him beautiful before.
‘Are you serious?’ he said, disconcerted by the vicious swell of heat stirred by the fierce appreciation in her gaze and the artless, forthright comment.
When he’d found her still curled up on his bed, fast asleep, he had planned to get dressed before she woke up, head out for his regular hour-long morning run in Central Park and direct his staff to make sure she was appropriately compensated and gone before he returned.
As much as he’d wanted her last night—hell, as much as he still wanted her—he hadn’t changed his mind about hitting on her. She was an employee, even if only a temporary one. And she was way too sweet beneath the snarky attitude. Not his usual type, at all. He preferred his dating life to be simple, and the women he dated to be smart and sophisticated and to know the score. This woman—if you could even class her as a woman, given the air of innocence that clung to her—had vulnerable written all over her.
But then her gaze lifted to his face, and he could see the glazed purpose in it, and the sheen of arousal.
The heat pulsed hard in his groin.
‘Aye,’ she said, her Scottish accent only making the single word more beguiling.
He didn’t take orders from anyone any more, but something about the way she’d asked fascinated and excited him, the shudder of uncertainty behind the fierce determination making him suspect she was as surprised as he was by her request.
To hell with it.
Lifting the hem of the T-shirt, he dragged it off and watched as her hot gaze become glued to his abs again.
He knew he was in good shape. She wasn’t the first woman to admire his physique. He’d been skinny as a beanpole as a kid, especially once he’d grown to his full height at fourteen. And he’d worked hard to fill out every inch in the years since. But when her gaze met his again and the passion flared, it occurred to him no one had ever looked at him before with such undisguised yearning.
‘Satisfied?’ he asked, both amused and impossibly aroused at the staggered rasp of her breathing.
She nodded.
Flinging the T-shirt away, he stepped towards her, the urge to touch her not something he could deny a moment longer.
He skimmed a knuckle under her chin, ran his thumb across her bottom lip. Her sharp intake of breath at the light touch electrified him.
Damn, was it possible she wanted him as much as he wanted her?
The enraged pixie had become an artless seductress. Would it really be so wrong to give in to this attraction, if it were mutual? Surely she couldn’t be as sweet and vulnerable as she’d appeared if her raw need was anything to go by?
His thumb pressed against the throbbing pulse in her collarbone, and the too-big zip-up sweatshirt fell off her shoulder, revealing the sprinkle of freckles across the upper swell of one breast.
‘How old are you?’ he asked, aware he was holding his own breath now.
‘Twenty-one,’ she said.
Thank God. Totally legal, then.
He cruised his thumb across the top swell of her breast. He forced himself to keep his touch light. Or as light as he could manage while the desire was blocking off his air supply.