She didn’t stretch, but she didn’t have to. Laziness wasn’t a part of her demeanor at the moment.
“You need someone’s help,” he growled as he stared around the living area once again. “What about the other rooms? Are they ready to load?”
Her eyes narrowed further. “Everything but the living room. Would you like to check, daddy, and make certain I’m following orders?”
The sweetness of her voice almost had his balls shrinking. Intimidation from a five-foot-four piece of dynamite? It shouldn’t be possible.
But he knew this little piece of dynamite could pack a wallop when it wanted to.
Unfortunately, common sense didn’t seem to be his forte tonight.
“Don’t call me ‘daddy,’ Tehya. I’m well aware of your feelings when it comes to fathers.”
She distrusted them. She even watched the men she had worked with for years with a suspicious gaze once they’d become fathers.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Jordan,” she replied with a cute little drawl that in no way detracted from the danger glittering in her gaze. “I have no feelings one way or the other where fathers are concerned. I never had a father, so how should I know how they’re supposed to act? Sperm donors don’t count.”
She had had little more than a sperm donor. One that had kidnapped her mother, impregnated her, then attempted to raise Tehya to become a brood mare for her half brother.
“You’ve had weeks to prepare for this,” he reminded her. “You should already be out of here.”
Something flashed in her eyes then, something he could have sworn was grief.
If it was, then it was the same grief that seemed to be growing inside him as well. A well of furious denial where it came to walking away from her. She cast him one of those cool little looks that warned of retribution as she stood facing him.
“I dare you,” she suddenly stated, her eyes narrowing as she stared back at him.
Every muscle in his body tightened dangerously.
God, no. Don’t let her dare him, not when he could sense where that dare was going.
“Excuse me?”
“Are you not hearing so well, Commander Jordan?” A red-gold brow arched slowly as her arms crossed over her breasts, pumping the delicate mounds up, making so damned tempting a sight his mouth almost watered.
“I dare you to actually touch me,” she explained, that note of anger in her voice causing his jaw to clench in determination. “You’ve been a complete prick for six years now, alternating between ignoring me and ordering your men away from me until it’s made me ready to pull my hair out. Be a man, Jordan. See if you can handle it. See if you can handle me or get the hell out of my room.”
There were some challenges a man couldn’t ignore no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much he wanted to. This was one of those challenges.
Be a man?
She had no idea who this man was she was tempting.
“Don’t push me,” he warned her, his fingers curling to fists at his sides. “You may not like the consequences.”
“Or you may not,” she replied with an edge of pain-filled mockery. “What’s wrong, Jordan, afraid you can’t walk away from me as easily as you’ve walked away from the little bimbos you’ve been fucking for the past six years?”
That flare of contempt that lit her gaze had his jaw tightening, but it was the pain in her voice, that tore at him. He hated hearing the pain, even that blurred edge of it. He’d seen that aching need, that hunger for something more, for years now. Too many years. He couldn’t stand hearing it in her voice now.
“I can walk away from any woman, Tehya.” He tried to keep his tone soft, gentle. God knew he didn’t want to fray those ragged edges further.
Soft lips tightened as the sharp blade of her nose lifted. Emerald-green eyes sharpened to gem brightness, but not from tears; no, Tehya didn’t cry easily. Hell, had he seen her cry at all in the many years he had known her? Definitely he hadn’t seen her cry for herself.
“Can you really?” Her head tipped to the side. “Isn’t that nice, Jordan, to be so certain you need nothing, no one. How superior you must feel to the rest of us mortals.”
Sharp, biting, her voice cut straight through the icy disdain he would have shown any other woman. The problem was, with Tehya, there was simply nothing but raw lust and shadowed emotions. That was the reason he stayed as far the hell away from her as possible.
He couldn’t project an icy disdain that simply wasn’t there. What he did have was a dick so damned hard he could pound iron with it.