Sway With Me (Inspiring the Greek Billionaire) (9 page)

Chapter 9

Therefore the poet

Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods

Since naught so stockish, hard, and full of rage,

But music for the time doth change his nature.

William Shakespeare,
Merchant of Venice
, Act 5 scene 1

After picking up the Lexus, which she noted still had that new car smell, Portia followed Ryan back to the house. Carrying six bags of their home repair items up to the front door, she made a mental list of what to tackle first in the kitchen. Thinking back to those moldy dishes, she knew she had to quickly air out that kitchen or she’d die of oxygen deprivation since she’d be holding her breath. Ryan pushed the door open and caught it before it fell inside the foyer again. He grinned, appearing proud of himself for getting the upper hand on the darned thing.

What was she thinking, telling him sex was on her agenda? Why didn’t she just come out and ask him if he’d spend the next three months having a hot steamy affair?

Unfortunately for her, she spent the entire car ride home trying to tamp down the arousal flowing through her like a river every time he opened his mouth. Of course, she felt like an idiot every time she opened hers. She was mortified that he thought she’d propositioned him for sex as a way to pay him for the house. When he pointed out she’d been caressing his arm as she mentioned they’d find an arrangement to satisfy them both, she’d wanted to jump out of the car, the fact it was in motion be damned.

It was a good thing they planned to work on different parts of the house, because if she spent hours in his company, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from touching him. Even in the car she practically had to sit on her hands to keep from exploring the hard planes of his chest and the muscles of his thighs. And based on what she’d seen so far, she’d likely enjoy every moment of her exploration.

“The power is on,” he pointed out as she dropped her bags by the staircase once they got inside.

She peered up at the crystal chandelier, noting it was covered in cobwebs and sighed. “Time to get to work.” She peered back at him. “Oh, and make sure you order a bed.” She didn’t know how long she’d survive sleeping next to him.

He pulled his cell phone from his jeans pocket and waved it at her. “The power of the Internet. I’ll have it overnighted.”

She crouched down to the bags and searched through them for the right cleaning supplies. “You should clear out one of the bedrooms upstairs so we have a spot to put it.”

He tipped his head and ran a hand over the scruff growing on his chin. Guess he hadn’t shaved today. All the men—okay, boys—she’d dated had skin softer and clearer than hers. For some reason, she preferred Ryan’s stubble to his clean cut look. It made him seem darker. More mysterious. More . . . dangerous. He was all man. A shiver ran through her as she imagined him rubbing his chin between her thighs, leaving his mark on her skin. Branding her as his. From that daydream alone, her panties grew so wet, they were practically useless. And all he did was rub his chin.

“Don’t you think?” she heard him ask.

She looked up at a grinning Ryan and realized she’d missed whatever he’d said, lost in her fantasy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. I was, uh, thinking about what I need to use to clean the sink.”

He kneeled down beside her and reached into the same bag she’d unsuccessfully rummaged through, brushing her palm in the process. She sucked in a breath as the touch sent an electric buzz straight to her core. At this rate, she may as well forgo wearing panties around him.

He held up a container of bleach. “I think you should start with this. But, what I said was that while I will attack a bedroom at some point before the bed arrives, I’m going to begin with patching up the leaks. No point in bringing in new furniture if it’s going to get ruined.”

She hopped to her feet and grabbed the bleach from his hold. Although she’d heard each word this time, her mind paid close attention to the words “attack” and “bed.” What she needed was a cold shower and some space, but in lieu of the shower, she’d have to settle for doing the dishes.

“Sure. Right. I’m going to go get wet—I mean—do the dishes.” With none of the grace of a dancer, she stumbled out of the foyer and staggered down the hall to the kitchen before he caught another glimpse of her blushing face.

As she approached, she began breathing through her mouth, careful not to smell the kitchen. Unfortunately, it didn’t work too well, and her stomach felt queasy from the rancid stench. She opened the picture window over the sink and attempted to open the sliding glass doors without success. Sighing, she mentally added it to the list of items to fix.

But what a beautiful view of the backyard. Small Evergreen bushes surrounded the circular porch comprised of red brick pavers. The porch connected to a long brick walkway trimmed by pink and purple flowers which spanned half the yard. Past that, green grass grew tall and wild, but would be beautiful when cut, and the back of the yard ended at a clear still lake. To the right, apple trees filled with fruit tempted her. Maybe she’d gather up some of the apples and make a pie this week. She wasn’t much of a cook, but this kitchen just begged to be used. At least, it would when it was clean.

Backing away from the view, she reluctantly made her way around the island to the sink and looked down. Holding back the urge to gag, she assessed whether she should attempt to scrub the solidified food off the plates or toss them out. She may as well try to salvage them since they didn’t have enough money to buy new plates. A light breeze blew in the window as she lifted the sink’s handle. She waited, but nothing happened. After a few seconds, a small trickle of water dripped from the faucet.

She twisted it left and right, up and down, then growled in frustration. She didn’t know the first thing about fixing a sink, but didn’t Ryan say he could? No, she wouldn’t give up easily. How hard could it be?

Praying rodents or bugs wouldn’t crawl out, she slowly opened the cabinet below the sink and did a quick sweep of its contents, finding a bottle of blue glass cleaner, some rags, and dishwasher detergent. Everything looked damp and the smell of mildew mixed with the other disgusting smell from the sink. Ryan so owed her for this.

She guessed the sink had a pipe loose and all she needed to do was tighten it. Biting her lip, she tried to think of a way to do it without bothering Ryan for his tools. Maybe she could use her hands?

On her knees, she stuck her head under the basin. She gripped the seal between two pipes, trying to turn it to the right to tighten, but as hard as she tried, it didn’t budge. She tried the other way, and encountered the same problem. Resting back on her haunches, she wiped a wet hand over her forehead to push back her hair. Darn it, she needed a tool of some sort. A wrench perhaps?

She got to her feet and sucked it up to go locate Ryan. Luckily, he hadn’t gone too far. In fact, he hadn’t moved at all. She found him in the foyer with his chest pressed against the door and an arm reaching up high as he twisted something with a tool. His blue T-shirt rode up to reveal the sinewy muscles of his naturally tan lower back. With him unaware of her presence, she took the opportunity to lower her gaze and further inspect him. As she’d noticed previously, the man had one hell of a tight behind. How did a lawyer-in-training get such a ripped body?

She coughed to get his attention. “Ryan?”

He twisted his neck to look over his shoulder and smiled. “Hey, check it out.” He lowered his arm, stepped back from the door, and opened it. “
Voilà
. It’s fixed. You can check it off your mental list.”

She placed a hand on her hip. “How did you know I have a mental list?”

“Are you denying it?” His eyebrow rose as he moved closer to her.

She wasn’t sure she liked how well he already knew her. If he could read her that easily, he’d have no problem sensing her attraction to him. And if he discovered that tidbit of information, she’d constantly walk on
pointe
with a blush on her face, which would only lead to further embarrassment. She’d be caught in a never-ending cycle of mortification for the next eighty-nine days.

Sensing there was no use denying it, she settled on the truth. “No. You’ve got me.”

Their gazes locked. His pupils grew larger, catching the light of the chandelier before the brown in his eyes grew darker. She couldn’t look away. After what felt like minutes, he broke their connection and checked out her feet.

“Did you need me for something?” he asked quietly.

Her mind went blank. What had she come to ask him? “Oh, yeah. I can’t get the sink to work. I’m thinking the pipes are loose because the water pressure is really low.”

He nodded. “You came to the right guy. I told you, I know my way around pipes. Let me grab my tools and I’ll teach you how to fix a sink.” With one hand, he picked up the tool chest and swaggered off to the kitchen like the mighty Thor off to do battle.

She held in a laugh and followed. He flipped up the sink’s handle and his eyes narrowed as he observed the low water pressure. After flipping it to cold, he kneeled and stuck his hand underneath the sink. “Could you switch it to hot for me?”

A tingling sensation began in her chest as she decided how to best accomplish his request. With him on his knees, she could stand behind him and lean forward, straddling him with her thighs, or she could stand next to him on her tip toes and reach. It shouldn’t be this difficult. A rational person would stand beside him. So why did she want to play with fire and straddle him?

She shuffled forward, stopping a couple feet behind him. Despite her overwhelming urges, rationality won out and she moved to stand to his right, going to her toes and reaching to turn the handle to cold. She remained next to him, waiting for his next command, amazed she could smell him over all the other scents in the kitchen.

“You can turn off the water,” he informed her as he got to his feet.

She complied and held onto the counter with the tips of her fingers acting as if it were a
barre
. Her feet couldn’t help themselves from moving into third position. Darn, he was going to wonder what was making her so nervous.

“What’s the verdict, Mr. Vila?” she teased. “Can you save our sink?”

His gaze flew to the floor to watch her feet. “Of course. My guess is the cold water valve is rusted. It’s a common problem with older pipes. They should have used copper, but instead they used galvanized. Not a terrible thing, but my guess is they charged Uncle Alexander copper prices and pocketed the difference. Like my Dad, he wasn’t exactly handy.”

He hadn’t mentioned much about his family and she wondered why he was broke when he came from a family worth billions of dollars, but she didn’t think now was the appropriate time for discussion and filed it away for later. “If the pipes are rusted, how do we fix them?”

“We’ll need to clean the gunk out,” he explained, bending to pull out a couple of tools from the box. He dropped back to his knees and patted his thighs with his hands. “Come on down here and you can help me fix this.”

She really didn’t want to get this close and personal with him, but she couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse to get herself out of it. Resigned, she told her lady parts to behave and knelt beside him.

“The reason I asked you to turn on the cold water was to check which pipe isn’t working right. The hot’s working fine, so we need to de-gunk the cold pipe.”

“De-gunk? Is that the technical term?” she teased, elbowing him playfully in the ribs.

He raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Now see this part here?” She got on all fours and joined him under the sink to see him pointing at a lever. “This is the cold water supply valve. We need to remove the whole valve and see what the problem is, but chances are, it’s rusted.” He grinned and turned his head toward hers, so close she felt his warm breath on her lips. “Impressed yet?”

She wanted to say something witty, but her mind once again went blank in his presence, so she nodded. At least it was darker down there and he wouldn’t notice her blushing.

He gripped the entire valve with his hand and tried to turn it. Mumbling under his breath, he reached behind him to grab something from the tool box. “Here. This should work.” He held a screwdriver in his hand. “We’ll use this to loosen the valve.” He jammed the screwdriver underneath the silver metal flush against the wall and wiggled it. “There, it’s working. See the—”

Cold water shot out of the hole Ryan created, spraying both of their faces. With a yelp, she pushed back on her heels and tried to get out of the way. Unfortunately, he had the same idea and their heads bumped with an audible
thump
.

“Shit, I forgot to turn off the main water valve,” he said as they got to their feet.

“How do we stop it?” she asked, thinking about the nursery rhyme in which the boy stuck his thumb in the dyke. Somehow she didn’t think it would work.

“Just—I don’t know—hold a towel to it and I’ll run down to the basement and try to find the main valve.” He rushed out, slipping and sliding along the way.

A towel? She grabbed a handful of rags and held them to the hole. The water spurted down rather than straight, creating a huge puddle of water which ran off the sides of the cabinet and onto the beautiful tile floor. In seconds, the rags soaked through rendering them useless. She gave up and dropped them, taking a gush of water to her chest.

She hoped Ryan knew where to look because the basement had to be more than two thousand square feet and they hadn’t even gone down there yet to investigate. Who knew where to find a main water valve? She hadn’t even heard of such a thing until Ryan mentioned it.

The water stopped.

She stood and squeezed out the excess water from her shirt. A pounding of feet on the stairs indicated Ryan was on his way. He ran in the kitchen and before she could warn him, he slid on the trail of water and knocked into her, backing her into the counter, effectively pinning her against him. His body heat seeped through her wet clothes as his chest rubbed against her hardened nipples. As if she wasn’t wet enough, her pussy prepared itself for a party with the hard bulge currently a few inches above it. Without her consent, her traitorous hips canted upward, searching for relief. His arms banded around her waist and he yanked her closer, lowering his hips and grinding against her core.