Muscle for Hire(7)

She let out a ragged breath. God help her if anyone knew she was marshmallow inside. It wouldn’t do her reputation as Chris’s menacing, prickly sister any good.

Which was all the more reason to keep Aslin Rhodes at a distance. The fact she was turned on just by looking at him was the final nail in the coffin.

“Okay.” Chris slapped his hands together, smiling at Rhodes before turning to Rowan. “Now we’ve got that outta the way, tell me how the World Cup went, sis. Did you win?”

Rowan felt Aslin’s steady gaze on her. For some stupid reason it made her pulse quicken. She nodded at her brother, determined to ignore her ridiculous reaction to the Brit. “I did.”

Chris nodded back. “Of course you did.” He turned to Rhodes who, Rowan could tell, was still looking at her. “Rowie is five-times Taekwondo World Champion. As well as a ninth degree Master in Jiu-jitsu. Oh, and she really knows how to swing a…what do you call it, sis? That long stick?”

“A bò.”

Rowan’s heart beat faster at Rhodes’ deep voice.

Chris snapped his fingers. “That’s it. A bò.”

Rowan wanted to fidget. She didn’t know why, but the unwavering attention of Aslin Rhodes was disturbing her.

Disturbing her. Arousing her. Making her want to throw Chris from his own trailer and beg the British super soldier to have wild, monkey sex with her.

A thick throb pulsed in Rowan’s core and she pressed her thighs together, willing it to go away.

But it wouldn’t. Not when she couldn’t escape Aslin’s focus. Not when she saw his nostrils flare as he watched her.

Not when her stare locked with his.

Damn it, this was unexpected.

“So.” Chris jolted to his feet, the action so abrupt Rowan flinched. “Does my sister want to join me and Aslin and Nigel for dinner? Apparently, we’re going out on the harbour on Russell Crowe’s yacht. Sounds like fun, right?”

Rowan watched Aslin’s nostrils flare again, a minute tension coiling in his sizeable shoulders. She narrowed her eyes. Did he not want her there?

Tearing her stare from his, she smiled at her brother. “Sure. Just let me have a shower and change my clothes. I’ve been wearing these jeans since Quebec.”

“I thought I could smell something.” Chris grinned. “The shower is on the left. Where’s your luggage?”

“Outside next to the step.” Unable to help herself, Rowan slid Aslin a sideward glance. “Where I put them before being attacked.”

Chris laughed, slapping Rhodes on the back. “I think she’s dissing you, Aslin.”

The British ex-commando’s lips curled. “I think you’re right.”

He didn’t move. Not for a strained second, and then—with that same oiled perfection she’d noted in him earlier—he turned and opened Chris’s trailer door.

Her brother dropped a wink at Rowan and, as Aslin turned his attention back into the trailer, ducked passed the Brit’s intimidating frame out the door.

Only to tumble, face first, onto the ground.

Rowan leapt to her feet. “What the fuck?”

She moved, but Rhodes moved faster, out the door to crouch beside Chris before she could even make it to the threshold.

“Geez.” Chris was pushing himself up onto all fours, Aslin’s long-fingered hands helping him even as the Brit scanned the immediate area with an unblinking stare. “Where’d the freaking steps go?”

A frown pulled at Rowan’s forehead as she studied the bottom of the doorway. Just as Chris had muttered, the steel steps leading up to the trailer’s only entry were gone.

She jumped to the ground and joined Aslin by her brother’s side. Chris was now sitting on his backside, his fingers taking hesitant swipes at his face. Blood trickled from a split beside his eyebrow and a ragged graze on his cheek. Around them, Rowan could hear people running. The film’s star had been injured. That was enough for any film crew to go into panic mode.

Squatting beside her brother, she turned her focus to the spot below the open door.

The steps were still there, but skewed off to the side, the top level nowhere near where a foot would land. They looked like they’d been kicked aside, maybe bumped by a passing cart, but to her memory, there’d been no resonating bump through the trailer.

Of course, it may have happened while she was fixating on Rhodes’s effect on her state of mind? Damn it.

She frowned. She didn’t believe that. But if the steps weren’t moved by accident, than who—

“Chris, are you okay?”

Rowan swung her attention up to Nigel McQueen, who now stood beside Chris and Aslin, worry etching his Hollywood-handsome face.