Muscle for Hire(18)
“Give me a kiss, sis.” Chris chuckled. “And stop freaking out.”
Heart far too fast for its own good, Rowan leant forward and dropped a kiss on her brother’s cheek, right beside the blooming purple bruise. “I’m not freaking out,” she muttered.
Chris laughed. “Yes, you are,” he shot back, his voice low. “And I know exactly why and it has nothing to do with me.” He slid a quick look over her shoulder, a shoulder still tingling from Aslin’s contact.
A thick lump formed in Rowan’s throat. She forgot sometimes how astute and observant her brother was. The world knew him as a sexy, handsome funny-man, a guy with a quick wit and a killer smile, and sometimes she herself was guilty of pigeon-holing him the same way. But he was more than that. He was smart and perceptive and tuned into her moods as only a brother who’d survived a nightmare with his sister could be.
“Love you, Rowie,” he murmured into her ear. “Now fuck off and have some fun for a change, will you?”
Rowan swallowed, unable to find any words. Instead, she gave her brother a quick nod, straightened and stepped back from his bed.
“Okay, Mr. Huntley,” the doctor said, just as a tall male nurse arrived and released the locking mechanism on the bed’s casters. “Time to exit left. Or is the appropriate term ‘That’s a wrap’?” The elder gentleman chuckled, slid his pen into his top pocket and gave Rowan a smile. “Do not stress, miss. Your brother will be fine.” And with that, and a quick inclination of his head to Aslin, he left.
As did Chris, the male nurse pulling the bed from its place without warning and maneuvering him away.
“I was about to say welcome to the weird world of film making, Mr. Rhodes—” Nigel chuckled, “—but I suspect the music world is equally weird, right?”
“Somewhat.” A shiver rippled up Rowan’s spine at Aslin’s voice. Damn it, when was she going to stop reacting to his accent?
Never?
Nigel laughed and then turned to her. “Rowan, Tilly has Chris’s hotel key. She’s waiting on set until she hears from me. Give her a call to let her know you’re on your way to collect them.”
Rowan nodded. “Thanks, Nigel.”
The director cast them both a contemplative look, as if seeing something he hadn’t expected, and then strode through the private room toward another door on the other side.
Which left Rowan alone with Aslin.
Again.
For some stupid reason her mouth went dry.
When Aslin placed his hand on the small of her back—the very place she’d been aching for it to be since he removed it—she jumped.
She lifted her stare up to his face, her lips prickling with a sudden rush of blood. “I…” she began.
A crooked smile pulled at one corner of his mouth. “Let’s go. There’s things that need to be done.”
Rowan’s heart smashed against her breastbone. She swallowed, her stomach muscles clenching. “Aslin, what we did—”
His dark gaze grew intense. “Isn’t finished.” And with that, he directed her from the room out into the ER waiting area beyond.
There were no camera flashes to been seen as they crossed the floor. She didn’t hear any more mutters of Nick Blackthorne’s name from the surrounding seats, nor the word bodyguard whispered, but the tension in Aslin’s body as they walked to the elevator told Rowan he suspected the paparazzi were still lurking there.
Or maybe he was tense because of her? Maybe, despite how calm and cool he seemed, he was just as disturbed by the sexual chemistry between them both?
She didn’t let herself ponder the possibility. When they stepped into the elevator, she pulled her cell phone from her hip pocket and dialed Chris’s personal assistant’s number, refusing to look at Aslin as she waited for Tilly to answer.
She heard him chuckle, a low rumble that made her sex throb, and then Tilly, in her subtle Californian accent, was saying, “Oh my God, Ms. Hemsworth, is Mr. Huntley okay?” in her ear.
The duration of the trip down to the parking level was spent arranging with Tilly to meet at Chris’s trailer within the hour. Rowan kept her stare on the closed elevator doors the whole time. It was gutless coward’s way to deal with a situation, but all Rowan could manage. The whole thing was too overwhelming. Too confronting and confusing. Better to spend longer than normal talking to Chris’s perky personal assistant than deal with the…the…thing hanging between her and the Brit. Not until she got her head around it. And decided on the next course of action.
She was still talking to Tilly—enquiring about Chris’s food intake while she’d been in Canada, of all things—when she and Aslin crossed the parking level to his Ducati. Their footfalls bounced around the quiet space, a soft tempo that rivaled the rapid beating of her heart. By the time Tilly said goodbye, Rowan was so tense, so on-edge, she could barely draw breath.