Armed with a feather duster to use as her cover for ‘cleaning’ Wesley’s bedroom while he isn’t there, Isabel gives herself one last chance to change her mind and get the hell out of there, never to think about what she’s about to do again. Her hand is on the doorknob, the spare key, as she keeps for all of the rooms, is in her hand. She silently wonders if she’s more worried about the morality of the actual act or the possibility of getting caught. But the latter is more than unlikely. Wesley had been out of sight since just after dinner. As was customary he’d slipped out the back door without anyone really noticing, anyone apart from her, that is.
I’ll be in and out within a few minutes; it won’t take any time at all, she tells herself. Man up, Bishop, she thinks to herself before she turns the key in the look and pushes open the door. The room is much as it was when she showed him in, nearly a week ago, but if anything it’s even neater. The bed is made, military style, the sheets so tight Isabel is left in no doubt you could bounce a penny off of them. There aren’t any of the trademarks of a man– no clothes strewn on the floor, no empty pizza boxes or chip bags piled by the wastebasket. She’s pretty sure that if she wiped her finger over the desk it would come away spotless, despite the fact that Raeburn had told Rosa she needn’t bother cleaning his room.
Isabel takes a look at the nightstand; it’s empty. She starts opening drawers to the small desk by the window, looking for something, anything that would give her some insight into the man that she’d open her house to without even a second thought. A passport, a driving license, a diary full of his deepest darkest secrets, Isabel will settle for anything. But there is nothing. The whole room is empty; the only sign of anyone living there are the clothes hanging in the ancient wardrobe. Instinctively, she runs her hand over the leather jacket she finds hanging there. It’s soft and inviting and, without thinking twice about it, she lifts the sleeve and smells it. It smells warm and spicy and unmistakably of Wesley Raeburn.
“Something I can do for you, Isabel?” His deep voice makes her yelp and whirl around to face him where he stands inside the door that he’s closed behind him.
“Jeez, what are you, some kind of jungle cat? Don’t you make any noise at all?” She holds a hand over her heart, feeling it hammering against her ribs and not just at the way he’s made her jump. She’s been caught red-handed rifling through his things, not only that but sniffing his damn jacket. This is bad.
He stares at her, nonplussed. “You’re one to talk about creeping around. I thought you valued your lodgers’ privacy. Isn’t that what you told me when I signed the lease?” He folds his muscled arms over his broad chest, looking at her with eyes that feel as if they can see right down to her soul.
“I was just…cleaning.” She holds up the feather duster in her hand, lamely.
But it’s clear from Wesley’s expression that he doesn’t buy it. “Inside my closet?”
He raises an eyebrow at her and she feels herself blushing, caught out in the obvious lie she’s just told. “All right, fine. I wasn’t cleaning, I was…checking.” At least that is closer to the truth.
Wesley remains staring at her in that impassive way of his. “Checking. Checking what?” His voice is calm but there’s no mistaking the fire lurking beneath the surface of the cool demeanor.
Isabel senses the heat coming off of him in waves from where she’s standing across the room and she can’t help but be drawn to it. “Checking that you weren’t hiding any bodies in there.” The words are out of her mouth before she’s had a chance to temper them and she feels herself flush again like a little kid.
He waits a beat, processing what she’s saying. “So, now I’m a serial killer, stashing women’s bodies in my closet?” If anything, he looks amused.
Isabel tries to shake off her embarrassment, reminding herself that she’s not a child; she’s an adult woman with a real reason for looking deeper into this man. “I don’t know what you are! The only things I know about you are that you have a motorbike and you pay in cash.” Wisely, she doesn’t include the fact that she knows about his past as a Marine. This doesn’t seem to be the right time to bring up the fact that she’s already looked into his background without his knowledge.
“So you’re saying you want to get to know me better.” It’s a statement rather than a question and it’s laden with innuendo. “Hell, Isabel, you could have just asked me out for a drink like a normal girl.”
“Well maybe I’m not a normal girl.” She cringes as she says the words, aware they’re not exactly the smoothest comeback she’s ever come up with.
“I can see that.”
Those four words combined with the way he’s looking at her speak volumes and Isabel feels herself swallow hard around the lump of anticipation that has suddenly formed in her throat. She gathers herself together. “I don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I’m not interested in you in that way.” Her voice barely stumbles over the lie despite his disbelieving raised eyebrow. “Something I’m sure you’re not used to hearing.” Her words are pointed, but they come out a little more bitter than she had intended. “My concern is purely professional, not personal. I want to figure out if you’re going to cause any trouble here. This is about my business, nothing else.” No matter that you make my insides do somersaults and my skin tingle, she silently adds.
Wesley opens his mouth to respond, the side of his mouth still lifted in a half smile that makes him look like the cat that got the cream, when her cell rings in her pocket. “You should get that. It could be important.” He leans back against the door, looking effortlessly cool and completely relaxed, something that just makes Isabel more aware of the tension radiating through her body.
For the lack of anything else to do, Isabel slips the phone out of her jean pocket and accepts the call without even looking at the Caller ID. “Yes.” Her voice is louder and sharper than she had intended and when she’s met by silence her frustration only increases. “Hello?”
There’s a pause at the other end of the line before a confused, familiar voice pipes up. “Isabel?”
“Mike!” Isabel blushes as she meets Wesley’s eyes and sees something more than just an idle curiosity there. “Sorry, I…umm…I didn’t realize it was you.” Great, she thinks to herself, I’ve been dodging his calls for days and the one time I picks up is in front of the worst person possible.
“So you haven’t forgotten my name!” His good-natured chuckle makes her smile, just like it always does. “When you didn’t return my calls I got a little worried. You sound a little…funny. Is everything all right?” The concern in his voice makes her feel terrible for having avoided him. After all, no matter what had happened between them, he is still her friend.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just been really busy.” She bites her bottom lip, turning away from the scrutiny of Wesley’s gaze and finding herself face to face with the leather jacket hanging in his closet that she had been inhaling so unceremoniously when he walked in. She blushes again like a teenager.
“Issy?” Mike had clearly been talking while she had zoned out.
“Sorry, Mike, the connection is really bad. It must be where I am in the house. Can I call you back a little later?” Isabel lies through her gritted teeth, wincing at her own deceit.
“Issy, we both know you won’t call me back.” The resignation in his tone makes her feel like a heel. “I want to talk and you keep ducking and diving. I know this is hard for you, with everything that happened with your mom and going back to Chicago, but we need to talk about us.”
“Us. Right.” Isabel nods in agreement, feeling Wesley’s gaze burning through her. Her own eyes are now trained on the floor, wishing it would open up and swallow her.
“So can we talk or not?” It’s the first time Isabel has heard Mike’s patience start to wear thin. A lesser man would have given up on her a long time ago.
“Mike, I’m really sorry, but now isn’t a great time.” She starts pacing around the room, as is customary for her when she’s having a difficult conversation, only belatedly remembering she’s in Wesley’s bedroom, not her own. She puts on her best professional-sounding voice. “I’m just with a tenant. There are a few things we need to sort out.” She looks over at the door to find Wesley, unabashedly listening to her entire conversation, eyebrows raised, smirk firmly in place.
“Of course, you’re working. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Mike is all deference and good manners, just as he always is.
“I’ll call you later, Mike.” The promise sounds hollow even to her ears.
“No you won’t, Issy.” He huffs a sigh. “But I’ll try you again tomorrow. Take care of yourself.”
He hangs up without giving her the chance to respond, probably a good thing, as she doesn’t even know what she would say to him that she hasn’t already covered. Before she left Dallas she had told him, in detail, why he didn’t want to be with her, why she wasn’t a catch and why they were better off a friends. He hadn’t wanted to listen then or any of the times they’d spoken since. Today doesn’t seem to be any different.
She remains staring at the cell in her hand for a few seconds, feeling like a bad person for not being able to tell him what he wants to hear: that she wants him, that she wants to be with him and only him. But if she had told him any of those things, they would be lies and she doesn’t want to lie to him any more than she already had.
“So it looks like I’m not the only one with secrets.” Wesley gives her a meaningful look.
Isabel frowns, pocketing the cell, irritated now at his knowing smirk. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s rude to listen to people’s private conversations?”
“You’re one to talk.” He doesn’t miss a beat. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to nose around in people’s bedrooms?”
Isabel feels herself flush, partly from embarrassment, partly from anger and she takes another step towards him until they’re only a foot apart. “This is my place, Wesley. And I have a right to know if something’s going on that could drive me under because right now, I’m about this close to falling overboard.” She holds up her index finger and thumb indicating less than an inch. “I don’t have the luxury of turning a blind eye to whatever it is you’re doing every night that gets your clothes all bloody and torn.”
Finally, there’s a flicker of something in his dark eyes, something fiery and dangerous. She wonders at the wisdom of getting a man like this angry, but this conversation has become about more than just him. It’s as if all the emotions she’s been feeling since her mother died – the panic that grips her every morning when she thinks of the impossible task she’s attempting on the boarding-house, her frustration at having let herself sleep with Mike, just because she was lonely and more than a little drunk – are being poured into this rage.
“I want to know what you’re hiding, Wes. And I intend to find out, one way or another.” She narrows her eyes at him, as she prods her index finger into his hard chest.
“Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it, Bel.” Her nickname on his lips is like a caress and he takes hold of her finger, pulling her closer to him so her green eyes are only inches away from his brown ones. “You know you have the most amazing eyes, Bel. Eyes like that can drive a man insane.”
In an instant his mouth is on hers, his tongue, probing at the seam of her lips, insistent, and, after a moment of surprise, she willingly opens to him. She moans as their tongues tangle and his hands move to either side of her face, stroking her cheek with the pad of his thumb. The kiss is long and deep and full of heat. But there’s something else she tastes, the promise of more and she feels an answering ache between her thighs. She bites his bottom lip gently, feeling a little thrill as he growls deep in his throat, pulling her even closer to him, so close that she’s left under no illusions that he wants her and, Lord, how she wants him.
The slamming of the front door down the hall brings her back to reality with a thump. Her eyes fly open and she takes a step back from him, watching as his hands drop slowly to his sides. He makes no move to reach out to bring her back to him. If anything, he looks as shell-shocked as she feels.
“I’m sorry, I hadn’t meant to -,”
“No, I’m sorry.” Isabel’s voice is a little stronger than she had feared but it’s husky as all hell. “I shouldn’t have come in here. That was…unprofessional. Can we just forget this ever happened?” She watches as his expression turns from contrition to something else – hurt.
“Sure.” He shrugs as if what had just passed between them was nothing different from a normal kiss he would share with anyone else.
That’s because it’s not different, Isabel. The rational side of her brain kicks the emotional side off of center stage. You’re not a fairy princess and he isn’t your prince. He’s just a guy who’s used to getting any woman he wants and you’re lonely and emotional. So get a goddam grip!
She nods to herself, taking on board the advice from her inner Jiminy Cricket. “Great.” Her voice sounds like it’s anything but. “So, I’ll just be going then.” She sidles around him to get to the door. She grabs the handle, feeling like she can’t get out of there fast enough.
“Isabel.” His velvety voice makes her freeze and turn around. He locks eyes with her, communicating more than he ever could with his words. “The next time you want to know something, just ask me.”
She nods quickly before dashing out of the door, closing it softly behind her. She races up to her bedroom and locks herself in the en-suite bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Her lips are swollen from the intensity of the kiss, her eyes bright and shiny like emeralds, her cheeks flushed, and there’s an ache of need inside of her that won’t quit. It had been more than a kiss, or, at least, more than any kiss she’d ever had before. There was something there, a connection, something that terrified her, but, at the same time, she knew she wanted more.
She leans her head against the cool glass, hoping it will do something to quell the fire raging inside of her. It would be so easy to fall into bed with Wesley, far too easy. And where would that leave her? Nowhere. It is clear he wants her, but he’s probably used to getting exactly what and whom he wanted, whenever he wanted them. The thought brings an unpleasant spike of jealousy along with it.
“You cannot fall for this guy, Isabel,” she tells her reflection in the mirror. “Not this one. Out of all the guys you’ve been with, you cannot choose the one who has trouble written all over him.” Her voice is stern as she gives herself the telling off that she needs. She will not fall for this man, this man she knows next to nothing about. It makes no sense.
Mike is a good, kind, dependable guy and he is crazy about her. Wesley is…well, that is exactly the problem. She doesn’t know what he is and her little mission only stirred up more questions without providing any answers. But, right now, the biggest question of all is how the hell is she going to face him after what had just happened?