Unmasked (Revealed #1) (2 page)

As the pasta was also cooking I hastily went in search of the cleaning cupboard Sarah had said was located under the stairs. Dragging a high-tech Dyson from the cupboard I turned my iPod on and set about hoovering the luxuriously furnished lounge.

With Mika blaring in my headphones and me tunelessly singing along, the time started to pass quite quickly and I began to meticulously work my way from one end to the other. The owners of this place really did have remarkable taste, because this room was once again different from the previous two, somehow managing to effortlessly combine traditional features like the stunning inglenook fireplace with a modern flat screen television, curved leather sofa, and an enormous DVD rack. From the vast array of movies on the shelves, they clearly liked to watch films, and did so in considerable comfort. The couch curved elegantly across the room, ending at a well-stocked drinks cabinet topped with a selection of sparkling glasses, decanters, and even a bowl full of packaged snacks. Pursing my lips appreciatively I nodded my approval. Mind you, there wasn’t really anything
not
to like. How the other half lived, I thought with a wry smile.

I was midway through my mammoth vacuuming session and singing along with Mika when the hoover suddenly cut off. Assuming I had pulled the cable from the wall in my exuberance I spun around to remedy it before letting out an ear-piercing shriek and leaping backwards, clutching at my chest as my heart suddenly beat frantically against my ribs.

The hoover hadn’t pulled itself from the wall. No, as I followed the trail of the cable it led me instead to the hand of a very large man, his arms folded and an incredibly angry expression on his face. Swallowing loudly, I briefly scrunched my eyes closed to make sure I wasn’t imagining him, but he was still there when I opened them again. And from the deep frown on his brow, he was still angry. Even through the shock of his sudden appearance, I could see this man was undeniably handsome. A shock of dark hair sat in a ruffled mess on his head, his jaw was defined and lightly stubbled, his lips were drawn into a tight line of disapproval but were infinitely tempting, and his dark eyes, although irate, seemed to somehow draw me in to the point where I felt the urge to step closer. Thankfully, I didn’t, instead forcefully making my legs stay still.

On top of all of that, it suddenly permeated my consciousness that he was only semi-clothed. Jesus. My eyes flicked over his body and I think my heart stopped for a few seconds before taking off again at such a rate that it was now booming in my chest like some badly played bongo drums. He was wearing nothing but a pair of navy pyjama bottoms.

Crikey, what a sight – so good in fact, that it really should be illegal. His legs were long, the thin cotton clinging to muscles hidden beneath, and the waistband hanging deliciously low on his hips, so it exposed a ‘v’ of muscles that led to goodness knows what splendidness below. Everything looked narrow and tight and … well, inspired all sorts of delicious thrusting naughtiness to spring to mind.

He was, quite simply, glorious.

My mouth suddenly felt as parched as a dry river bed. Licking my lips, my eyes lingered on his well-muscled abdomen for far longer than necessary, but I couldn’t seem to pull my gaze away as I gulped desperately and absently reached to tug my earbuds out. I didn’t even know him, but the urge to step forwards and run my tongue up the centre of his chest was almost overpowering.

His appearance had definitely sent me into an instant tail spin, there was no doubt about that.

‘You’re not Sarah,’ the man stated grouchily, completely bursting my lovely erotic bubble of pleasurable chest licking and hip thrusting. Of all the words I’d briefly imagined coming from his beautiful lips, those were not the ones I’d hoped for. Although exactly what I
had
hoped for I wasn’t sure – his mere presence seemed to have completely thrown me. His bluntness, however, did bring me somewhat back to earth and raised my hackles, so instead of asking the obvious question of who he was – the house owner, I hoped – I instead opted for a sarcastic response.

‘Good observation, you must be a genius,’ I said dryly, rather glad that I didn’t sound as shaken as I felt. God, my heart was pounding so hard that I could feel my ribs vibrating. My reply caused his dark eyes to narrow in annoyance as he began to roll his lovely lips until they formed a tight line of disapproval. Hmm … there was something about that intense, broody look that made my knees feel a little weaker, and to my surprise I felt a low ache of arousal settle in my belly.

Crikey. This was all very much unexpected.

I had expected to clean, cook, and scarper, but now I was faced with a hulking great pile of hot, angry male, who for some inexplicable reason was turning me on more than I had been in a long time.

I hadn’t dated for a while. A
long
while. I’d been too busy with work to even notice men – being a newly qualified teacher does that to you – but apparently right now in a strange house, with an equally strange and irritable man, was the moment that my libido decided to kick back in. Just flipping typical.

‘Look, I’ve been up for the last forty-eight hours, I don’t need your sarcasm,’ he informed me in a low, gritty tone, which was so incredibly masculine that it caused goosebumps to rise on my arms and did absolutely nothing to help my lust decrease. Jeez. I
really
needed to get a grip.

‘You’re in my bloody house, who the hell are you?’ Ah, so he
was
the home owner. That was a marginal relief. As my eyes greedily skimmed over him again I decided I needed to rewrite my earlier speculation about what the owner would be like, because this guy was clearly neither old nor fat. Young, hot, and trim would be more accurate. I’d guess he was older than my twenty-six years though, probably mid-thirties, but not ‘ancient’ old like I’d expected. For some ridiculous reason I nearly found myself telling him about my earlier assumptions, but my inability to reel in my skittering emotions indicated that perhaps now was not the time to push this guy with my runaway mouth.

Keeping it short and sweet I tried to soften him with a small smile, but his face remained folded in a deep frown, his lips drawn into a thin line and his expression completely unchanged, as if my effort had no effect whatsoever. ‘Sarah’s ill, I’m covering for her. I’m Allie.’

Nodding once, he raised a hand and rubbed it through his short, dark hair, leaving it ruffled and messy and pulling my gaze to the tightness of his bicep as he moved his arm. Gosh, he was so well built it would almost be criminal
not
to look. From the lovely taut bulge in his arm, this guy must work out on a daily basis – either that or there were some seriously good genes in his bloodline.

‘Well,
Allie
.’ He pronounced my name sarcastically, as if it were a strange and irritating foreign language, which immediately irked me. ‘As I just said, I’ve been up for the last two days and I really need to sleep, so leave the bloody hoovering and just have a tidy up instead.’ The random attraction I
was
feeling was somewhat doused by that remark – he spoke as if I had turned the hoover on deliberately to wake him. What a grouchy, gorgeous bastard.

I might have been suffering from an unnervingly serious case of lust toward this man, but I wasn’t one to lie down and let people walk all over me, and his condescending tone had my annoyance quickly building. Narrowing my eyes at him, I straightened my spine to look as tall as I could. Not that it took me anywhere near his impressive height, but at least it made me feel a bit better. ‘You weren’t even supposed to be here today, so don’t have a go at me for trying to do what I’ve been asked,’ I replied tightly.

My snarky reply caused a brief flash of surprise to cross his face before he resumed that bloody frown. As hard as I tried to ignore it, I noticed that he was doing that lip-rolling thing again too, and in response I found myself slowly licking my tongue across my own lips. Realising what I was doing, I quickly whipped my tongue back into my mouth and slammed my jaw shut so hard that my teeth made a cracking noise that caused me to wince. What the heck was I doing? This guy was acting like a stuck-up idiot and I was here appreciating his good looks? Regardless of his handsomeness I seriously needed to get a grip!

‘Yeah, well, I’m back early and I need to sleep and eat, so just make some food and leave it in the fridge.’ As well as being stuck up he was apparently lacking in manners, so I raised my eyebrows at his rudeness like I did with the children in my class when I expected them to consider their wording, ‘…
please
,’ he added wearily, and I nearly smiled at this small concession. Watching him as he watched me, I briefly thought that perhaps he looked familiar, but couldn’t place where I would know him from. Shrugging it off, I decided it was probably just his good looks that were continuing to confuse me, because even if he was a moody bastard there was no denying that he was definitely a very attractive moody bastard.

With his minimal clothing there was no disguising the raw appeal of his well-muscled body either – the light covering of hair on his chest looked soft, filling me with an urge to touch it, and the angles of his stubble-covered chin were appealing and something I always found particularly sexy. All in all, it was a rather nice view. Apart from the frown, of course, but realising what a mess I already was it was probably safest that I didn’t see him smile. It would no doubt be devastatingly good.

In the space of two minutes in this man’s company I felt like I was well on my way to losing my mind, so drawing in a shaky breath I tried to clear my head before looking back at him. To my annoyance I found him watching my appraisal of his body with apparent amusement. It wasn’t exactly a smile, but he had a smug quirk to his lips that made me realise with horror that my staring – and no doubt goofy expression – must have made it pretty obvious what I was thinking.

Damn my traitorous body, damn this bloody job, and damn this man.

Annoyed at my own lack of control I refused to show him that I was bothered by his presence, even though I clearly was, so I turned in the direction of the kitchen without so much as a backward glance at him. ‘Fine, I’ll make you some food and leave,’ I muttered.

As I strode back to the kitchen I realised that I had unconsciously crossed my arms over my chest – clearly as well as being horny I was also a little bit defensive from my run-in with the nameless, and shirtless, handsome stranger.

TWO

Allie

As soon as my feet hit the tiled kitchen floor I became a human tornado, speeding through my jobs with focus and barely even pausing to draw breath. My haste was partly fuelled by the angry, lusty feeling that he had sparked in me, and partly because I was keen to escape before it started to rain. Or as I had predicted earlier – snow. Whatever it was I was running from, man or weather, I wanted to get the heck away from this house as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, I had been so distracted by thoughts of the handsome bastard that I’d left the pasta for so long that it was less ‘al dente’ and more ‘a sticky mess at the bottom of the pan’ and I had to start all over again.

When the food was finally complete I pushed my hair from my face and looked up to see thick, fluffy flakes beginning to fall outside the window. Snow? Damn it, I hated when I proved myself right. Cursing under my breath, I angrily shoved lids on the Tupperware containers and slid them into the fridge, grabbed my bag, and started to shrug my jacket on as I dashed through the house for my car. If I was lucky, I could escape the twisty country lanes and get to the main roads before the snow got too bad.

There was no sign of Mr Misery Guts as I made it to the front door, which was mostly a relief, but did also trigger a brief flicker of disappointment that I wouldn’t get a last look at his godliness. I was definitely going to ask Sarah about him, though. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t mentioned what a hottie he was, and knowing Sarah’s love of a fine male specimen there is no way he could have escaped her notice.

However, thoughts of sinfully sexy pyjama bottoms were abruptly pushed from my mind when I yanked the front door open and to my dismay found a flurry of white snow falling all around me.
Shit!
The flakes were already falling far more quickly than I had imagined, and judging by the eerily silent white landscape, it had been doing so for quite a while. I’d been standing chopping vegetables by floor to ceiling windows – how had I not seen it start?

Annoyed at myself for not noticing the snow earlier, I practically ripped the door off my car as I opened it, threw my bag onto the passenger seat, and slid inside. Shoving the key into the ignition I turned it, praying that it would start. Wincing as it pathetically coughed and turned over several times I finally heard the rumble of the engine kicking to life and blew out a relieved breath. Thank God for that. I’m not sure I’d ever been more relieved about anything in my entire life.

Ramming it into first gear before the engine could change its mind, I went to pull away when my front wheels immediately started to spin uselessly below me, the mixture of snow and gravel combining to become slippery and useless under my tyres. Lightening my touch on the accelerator, I muttered a small plea under my breath and tried again. And again.

Attempting to coax my car forwards with soft, gentle encouragement I even stroked the steering wheel in my desperation to persuade it to move, but nothing was working, and after five more minutes and several additional failed attempts, the only progress I had made was a marginal skid to the right. Scowling at the dashboard, all thoughts of gentle coaxing went up in smoke as I instead began to hurl abuse at it. ‘Bloody bugger it!’ I yelled, banging my hand on the steering wheel several times.

Pausing in my tantrum, I calmed my panted breaths and stared miserably ahead of me at the tarmacked parking spaces a few meters away. The snow was thinner there because of the tree cover above, and this sight did nothing to brighten my mood, because there was no doubt that if I’d parked there like I was supposed to, I would have managed to get a good enough start to make it down the driveway. Thinking of the gravel beneath me, it suddenly occurred to me that all my wheel spinning had probably done a bit of damage to Mr Mean and Moody’s treasured driveway. Oops. Hopefully he was sound asleep by now and I would be able to escape before he noticed my property destruction. Briefly chewing on a fingernail, I realised that I probably should have felt a bit guiltier at this realisation, but I was far too busy feeling sorry for myself about being stuck in the middle of nowhere to dwell on it.