“You’ll fall, and that will draw more attention.” He tried to ignore the scent of her and the feel of her slender curves.
“Whatever. If it validates your manhood, go right ahead and sweep me up, but if you slip on black ice and put your back out, don’t blame me.” But she stopped wriggling. “This is the point where you tell me I don’t weigh anything.”
He waited a beat. “If I had to guess, I’d say you weigh the same as a small hippo.”
“You have no idea how much I hate you.”
“I know exactly how much you hate me.” He lowered her gently onto the seat of the cab. “Wait there.”
She eased herself into a more comfortable position. “Where are you going? To find a chiropractor?”
He didn’t bother holding back the smile. “I’m going to tell a few lies about where you are.”
Alec strode back into the gallery, found the owner, made up something that he hoped sounded plausible, picked up Skylar’s coat and bag and joined her in the taxi.
The driver looked at him expectantly. “Where to, mate?”
It was a question he hadn’t considered until now.
Alec looked at Sky. Her eyes were closed, the livid bruising darkening before his eyes.
“Sky?”
She didn’t move.
His instinct was to ask the driver to deliver them to the nearest emergency department but she’d begged him not to, and he understood now it was because she didn’t want to risk the publicity.
He didn’t even know where she was staying. Was she checked into a hotel somewhere with Richard Everson?
“Sky.” He nudged her and her eyes opened slowly, as if she had lead weights attached to her eyelids.
“Go away. I’m going to sleep, probably for a hundred years, and if you kiss me to wake me up I’ll kill you.” Her eyes drifted shut again and Alec leaned his head back against the seat, wondering what he’d done to deserve this. He was kind to old ladies and tried never to forget his mother’s birthday but apparently someone still thought he needed to be punished.
Unable to come up with a viable alternative, he reluctantly gave the address of the hotel where he was staying.
The cab driver did a U-turn and Skylar’s head flopped against his shoulder. Alec tried to shift her away, but her body settled against his as if it had been custom designed to fit.
The only way to stop her sliding off the seat was to put his arm round her and he did that with the same degree of enthusiasm he displayed when completing his tax return.
The coat he’d lent her was open at the front and he saw that the silver fabric of her incredible dress clung to her curves like a body stocking. A perfectly wrapped Christmas parcel.
She had the face and body of a Victoria’s Secret model.
He imagined unzipping that dress and revealing those curves and quickly averted his eyes.
No way.
Not only was she injured and involved with someone else, but their relationship bordered on adversarial.
Who was he kidding? They didn’t have a relationship.
So why did he suddenly want to strip her naked and bone her into next week?
What the hell was wrong with him?
Given the circumstances his response bordered on the depraved, but knowing that seemed to make no difference. His body was a throbbing ache and he tried again to ease away from her, but she nestled closer. Immediately he was engulfed by the light, fresh scent of flowers.
He glanced down again, to the shimmer of her nails and the elaborate silver cuff on her narrow wrist that was obviously one of her own unique designs, forcing himself to admit the truth—he was turned on by a woman who set off every alarm in his body. The type of high-maintenance female he went out of his way to avoid.
And he was taking her back to his hotel room.
Last time he’d helped a woman in trouble it had ended badly.
He hoped the minibar was well stocked because he was going to need every bottle in the fridge to get through the next few hours.
Merry Christmas, Alec.
SKYLAR’S HEAD POUNDED, as if a thousand elves from Santa’s workshop were hammering on her skull. There was a tickling feeling on her face and she kept her eyes closed, drifting in and out of sleep, lulled by the hum of the engine and the low murmur of male voices.
Alec’s voice. Alec Hunter.
She lay against his shoulder, the strength of his arm keeping her locked against a chest that was solid muscle.
He was an academic. A man who spent at least half the year delivering lectures and studying papers. He wasn’t supposed to have the body of a fighter.
She knew she should pull away but she didn’t have the energy.
Had she been in a better state she would have laughed.
Of all the people who disapproved of her, her parents and Richard included, Alec Hunter led them all. He made no secret of the fact he thought she was shallow and frivolous.
Princess.
It was the cruelest irony that he’d been the one to be by her side at her lowest moment.
At some point during the journey she felt him move. She assumed he was about to push her onto her own side of the seat, but then she felt him applying a soft pad to her head and realized that the tickling feeling was blood coming from the wound.
He’d given her his coat, she remembered, which meant that her head was rubbing up against the pristine white of his shirt.
Pristine no longer.
Even knowing that didn’t motivate her to move.
She would happily have stayed in the cab forever, all her problems suspended.
Eventually they came to a standstill.
Alec eased her away from him and pushed her hair back from her face.
“Sky? We’re here.”
She was surprised by how gentle his fingers were.
She opened her mouth to ask where “here” was, but he was already leaning forward to pay the driver and then there was the sound of the door opening followed by a rush of cold air that made her gasp.
She was about to tell him she could walk but he scooped her up without asking and carried her into what was obviously a hotel.
Bright lights dazzled and she screwed up her eyes against the light, thinking not for the first time that Alec Hunter had a touch of caveman about him.
She was treated to a close-up view of the stubble that shadowed his jaw.
He smelled dizzyingly good, a mixture of lemons, winter forest and delicious man.
He didn’t pause at the reception, spoke to no one, simply strode through a marble-clad lobby and into the elevator with the same cool authority he seemed to show in everything he did.
“I can’t believe they didn’t challenge you,” she muttered. “You could have drugged me, or kidnapped me for your pleasure.”
“They probably took one look at you and knew that no man in his right mind would take you