Your Wish Is His Command by Judi Fennell Read Free Book Online

their home, turned the reins of his company over to
his brother, and put down his paint brushes.
    Yes, Jolie had known exactly who she’d
be working for. That’d been half the incentive.
    “ So, new girl, do you have a name?
And what are you doing here today?”
    Since he was talking, she assumed it was safe
to turn around.
    The old adage about making an “ASS out of U
and ME” proved true.
    Although he was the one with the A-S-S. And
what a nice one it was. As was the muscled shoulder leaning against
the stainless steel of the microwave above the stove, and the
ninety-degree jut of his jaw line, the sculpted cheekbones, a
perfectly proportioned brow, the fall of hair over his
forehead…
    She tore her gaze away from the visual
smorgasbord and, traitors that they were, her eyes headed
south.
    Thank goodness he had the dish towel spread
across his nether regions like a loincloth. But a hot guy in a
loincloth was just as distracting as a naked hot guy. And she’d
seen him in both. Or not in both. Whatever.
    She ordered her eyes back on the pan. “Um yes,
I do have a name, and as to what I’m doing here, I think that’s
obvious—burning the butter for your morning omelet.” She raised the
pan to illustrate and managed a quick push with her hip to get him
to back away from the stove so she could start cooking again,
praying all the while she wasn’t hitting something
vital.
    Luckily, the guy had quick reflexes—or a good
hunch—’cause he stepped out of the way before her hip came anywhere
close to anything important, saving them the extreme embarrassment
of that .
    “ How’d you get in?” Mr.
Clothing-Optional asked.
    Okay, what was the protocol here? How long did
one actually have to converse with a buck-naked human being before
someone said something about it? Or did a strategically placed
dishtowel negate all observances of nudity?
    “ Look, um, Mister .” What did
one call their bare boss? Todd? Sir? Big guy ? “How ’bout you
go freshen up a bit and I’ll make breakfast. We can have our chat
when we’re both, um, well, prepared for the day. ’Kay?”
    “ Fine. I’ll get dressed. Then we’ll
talk.”
    “ You do that.”
    As he sauntered—okay, maybe that was her
overactive imagination, because could one really saunter
with a Jim Beam-sized hangover?—from the fourteen-foot-ceiling
kitchen with its state-of-the-art appliances that looked as if
they’d come out of their packing boxes yesterday, so stainless
steel shiny she could have used them as a mirror to fix her
lipstick—if she’d worn lipstick—and she inhaled enough oxygen to
jump-start primordial ooze.
    Which posed a whole new set of problems for
this job. How was she supposed to focus if she kept getting
sidetracked by the physical?
    But she would.
    She could.
    Heck, if she could outwit social workers and
manage to keep her teenaged self out of the gutter, not to mention,
actually make something of her life, she could certainly
keep her own libido in check.
    She had to. Her job, her livelihood, and all
her dreams depended on it.
     
    ***
     
    Each step up the goddamned grandiose stairway
reverberated through Todd’s skull, setting his teeth on edge and
his stomach roiling. Why the hell hadn’t the builder put carpet on
these stairs?
    Todd grabbed his head with one hand, keeping
the other one hovering above his groin with the damned kitchen
towel. It’d be funny if it weren’t so ungodly pitiful.
    He, a grown man, hiding his modesty behind a
piece of eight-by-twelve cotton because he didn’t have enough sense
to pass out in his own bed.
    He kicked open the bedroom door and grimaced.
Bare, tan walls, minimal furniture, and the fucking king-sized bed
mocked him.
    He knew exactly why he’d chosen the
couch.
    And he wasn’t about to dwell on it. He’d done
enough dwelling last night. More than enough,
apparently.
    He barreled through to the bathroom, his
refusal to dwell on the reason just one more part of the person
he’d become