Dirty Scoundrel (Roughneck Billionaires 2)

And then I feel a little stab of guilt, because I do worry that Lexi has felt like an extra all day and I didn’t notice.

“I’ll take Lexi home,” Knox says, getting out his phone. “I’m calling my driver right now.”

I hesitate, but Lexi gives me a sly wink that tells me she’s fine with Knox giving her a ride. Ooookay, then. “If you’re sure,” I say, waiting for someone to speak up.

No one does. Lexi points at Knox’s phone, reading over his shoulder. “Tell him he needs to bring us Happy Meals.”

Knox nods and starts typing.

“Yeah, she’s fine. Come on,” Clay murmurs.

“I’ll call you later,” Lexi yells out as we leave. I feel a little guilty, but I can’t make her come, and I know she’s sober. She’s not a drinker. Maybe she’s interested in Knox? I make a mental note to grill her tomorrow via text.

Clay holds my hand and carries my bag as we head back to his truck, and he opens the door for me so I can slide in. The moment I do, his eyes widen.

“What is it?” I ask, worried about that look on his face.

“Did you use sunblock?”

“I did earlier.” Now that he mentions it, though, I do feel warm. Really warm. I flip down the visor and peer at my reflection.

I’m tomato red. Oh god. My face is bright pink from chin to hairline, and I’m pretty sure my scalp is even sunburned. How is that possible? I lift my suit strap, and the line of pale skin that was covered looks bright enough to be a stripe on the flag. Oh boy. This is going to hurt tomorrow.

“It must not have worked very well,” I say feebly, pressing my fingertips to my skin. “Guess that’s what I get for grabbing the first one I saw at the drugstore.”

“We’ll get you fixed up, baby,” Clay promises.

I guess at some point I started being okay with him calling me baby again.

He begins driving and at some point I guess I nod off. I wake up and see we’re stopping at a pharmacy. “Wait here,” he tells me. Clay returns a few minutes later with a bag and puts it on the floorboard, then tucks me against his side. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you up when we get home.”

I nod and snuggle against his shoulder. “Didn’t realize I was this tired,” I tell him, yawning.

“It’s okay,” he says with a chuckle. “I got you.”

“It’s a long drive back to the hotel,” I tell him, rubbing my face against his warm, delicious arm. “Let me know if you want me to drive for a bit.”

“We’re good,” he promises me. “You sleep.”

I do. I doze off and when I wake up, the truck has stopped and Clay’s opening my door. “Come on, sweetheart,” he murmurs, and hefts me into his arms.

That wakes me up. “Clay,” I protest. “You can’t carry me. I can walk!”

“I’ve got you,” he tells me. “Just put your arms around my neck.”

Since I have no other choice, I do, and I’m surprised to see we’re not at the hotel. We’re in front of . . . a trailer, of all things. Oh. “Is this where you live?”

“Yeah, it’s a lot closer than the hotel. It’s not much to look at, though. Sorry about that. I never bring anyone over.” He goes up the steps and pushes the door open, then flips on the light. Inside, it’s surprisingly clean and neat, with an old, beat-up sofa, a large flat-screen TV mounted to the wall, and blankets tossed over a nearby chair. Even his kitchen is tidy. The place is small and looks a little worn, but it’s charming to see Clay’s personality in the sparse furnishings. There’s a Houston Texans jersey on the wall, and a framed family photograph across from it. He sets me down and then lightly presses a kiss on my nose. “You need to take a cold shower to cool your skin off.”

“I feel fine,” I protest. “I’d rather look around.”

“You’re fine, huh?”

“Absolutely.”

He pokes my shoulder with a finger.

“Ow.” I swipe his hand away.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go get in the shower or I’m gonna spank you.” He wiggles his eyebrows at me. “Unless you’d like that.”

“Maybe I would and maybe I wouldn’t,” I say loftily. “Is it in our contract?”

He only snorts. “Just get your sassy butt in the shower. A cold shower,” he points out. “And then you’re gonna come out here and drink some water, because I want you to stay hydrated.”

“Nag, nag, nag,” I tease, and then ruin it by yawning. “Are we sleeping in your bed tonight?”

“Yup, we are. We’ll go back to the hotel in the morning.” He moves past me farther into the trailer, and opens a door. Inside are neatly stacked linens, and he pulls a towel out and hands it to me.

“I’m going, I’m going,” I mutter. I take the towel from him and head for the door he’s pointing at. The bathroom’s neat as a pin—neater than I expected, given Clay’s rough and tumble exterior—and the body wash in the shower caddy smells like he does. I sniff it for a long, heavenly moment before undressing and then turning the shower on.

The cold water hits me like a log. I bite back the yelp that threatens and cling to the tile, shocked at how freezing cold it is. It takes a moment for me to fiddle with the knobs and figure out how to change the water to slightly warmer, and I end up shivering under the spray for as long as I can bear it.

A quick look in the mirror when I get out tells me that I’m going to be feeling this in the morning. Really, really feeling this. My skin is a deep, angry red, and pale white where my swimsuit covered it. Ugh. In addition to painful, it looks completely unsexy as well.

“Come on out,” Clay calls to me.

I wrap the towel around my body and follow his voice. The sunburn’s starting to hit me now, and I feel exhausted and achy. Clay’s waiting in his bedroom—a tiny, neat room with a nightstand full of hunting and business magazines, and a full-size bed that’s had the blankets stripped off of it, revealing a cool white sheet.

“Lie down,” Clay tells me, and pats the bed. “I’ll rub aloe vera on your burns.”

“I should be waiting on you,” I tell him miserably. “Pretty sure the reversal isn’t part of the deal.”

“Fuck the deal,” he says. “Get in this bed already, baby.”

Well, okay, him demanding I get into bed does sound a bit like our deal. I do, and I carefully lie down on my belly, exposing my back to him. My movements cause the towel to shift and I whimper when it brushes against my reddened skin.

“You’re killin’ me, Nat,” Clay says in a frustrated voice. “Hate seein’ you in pain.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t like being in pain.”

He chuckles and pulls the towel down my back. “No, that don’t help much.”

I grab the towel from his hand and hike it back up before he can expose my butt. “You can just do my shoulders.”

“Like I ain’t seen every inch of you already,” he teases, pulling the towel back down. “Quit bein’ so shy.”

“It’s one thing to be sexy naked,” I grump. “Another to be ailing naked. Ailing naked isn’t a good naked.”

“Any time you’re naked, I think it’s a good naked.” I hear the cap flip, and in the next moment, something screamingly cold splatters on my back. At my yelp of protest, Clay laughs again. “Sorry. Guess it’s cold.”

“You’re a terrible nursemaid.”

His hand smooths onto my back a moment later, spreading that cold, soothing lotion around, and I groan at how good it suddenly feels. “I’m not used to takin’ care of no one,” Clay admits. “So I might not be the sweetest nurse, but I’ll be the most enthusiastic.”

“Enthusiasm’s good.” I close my eyes and rest my head on my folded hands, relaxing as he rubs the aloe onto my burn. “I really appreciate this.”

“I don’t mind in the slightest. Lets me touch you for a bit longer, and I’m greedy that way.”

I smile to myself. “You touched me all day long.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m tired of it.” He puts another dollop of aloe on my back and begins to rub it in as well. “Your dad . . . you said he’s really sick, huh? You take care of him?”

“I do,” I say softly. It feels strange to be talking about my dad to Clay, especially after the realization that Dad did so much to keep us apart from each other. “It’s hard to be angry with him, because I know what’s happened to him. After his stroke, he hasn’t been the same. It took him months and months to recover, and by the time he could get around again, Johanna had filed for divorce and his accountants had let me know that he didn’t have any money left. I thought it couldn’t get any worse . . . and then he started mistaking me for my mother, who died when I was five.”

His hands gently caress my shoulders. “Ouch. That had to have been painful.”

I nod. “At first I thought it was just a spell. That maybe he was struggling a little after the stroke. But then it kept happening more and more. He’d wake up and think he was late for a movie. Or he’d sometimes have no idea where he was at all, and just scream and scream at me like I was torturing him. And sometimes when he’s having a bad spell, he remembers Mom’s death and he just cries and cries. Those are the worst days.” I swallow hard. “He should probably be in a home, but I can’t afford any but the barest-bones ones, and I don’t want the world knowing that Chap Weston is being tossed into a cheap home by his mean daughter.”

“So you started runnin’ a museum for him instead?”

“It seemed like the only thing to do. When he was still coherent, I suggested selling some of his memorabilia from the movies. He’s got tons of it, you know. Says he used to hit up all the studio lot auctions with Debbie Reynolds. Didn’t want to sell any of it, either. He refused, and it’s his stuff so I can’t go around him. And doing that would be cruel, anyhow. So I tried for a while to sell autographs and signed pictures on eBay and things. It didn’t make much money, but then we had a fan show up out of the blue one day and she wanted pictures of Dad, and he was just so delighted to show her around and give a tour of his collection. And that’s kind of how the museum started.”