tall, with thick dark hair, chestnut she’d call it. He had eyebrows to match that shaded piercing blue eyes and a nose that may or may not have been broken once upon a time. His lips were full and pink, and a two-day growth of beard darkened his jaw.
His torso was bare but he held what appeared to be a black T-shirt in his hand. Just what had he been planning on doing? she wondered, before she was distracted again by his broad shoulders and smooth chest. He reminded her of someone, she thought as her eyes roamed over his body.
The statue of David, she thought, brought to life. He was made of warm flesh instead of cool marble but had the same, startling level of perfection.
Her heart was still beating a rapid tattoo. Adrenaline was still coursing through her system but not out of fear. Now it was a simple chemical, or maybe hormonal, reaction.
‘I think you have some explaining to do,’ said the living, breathing statue.
In Luci’s opinion so did Callum, Seb’s absent brother, and she was blowed if she was going to explain herself while she lay in bed naked. She clutched the sheet a little more tightly across her breasts. ‘Let me get dressed and then we can talk.’
The corner of Seb’s mouth lifted in a wry smile and there was a wicked gleam in his blue eyes. Luci felt a burst of heat explode in her belly and she knew that the heat would taint her body with a blush of pink. She could feel the warmth spreading up over her chest and neck as Seb continued to stand in the doorway. Did he know the effect he was having on her? She had to get rid of him.
‘Can you give me a minute?’ she asked.
‘Sure, sorry,’ he replied, looking anything but sorry. ‘And while you’re at it,’ he added, glancing at the phone that was still clutched in her hand along with the sheet, ‘do you think you could ring the police and tell them it was just a misunderstanding? I don’t want the neighbours getting the wrong idea.’
‘I didn’t actually ring the police,’ Luci admitted.
He turned and left the room, pulling the door closed behind him, and she could hear him laughing, a deep, cheerful sound that lifted her spirits.
Luci waited to hear his footsteps retreat before she was brave enough to throw off the sheets once more. She climbed out of bed on shaky legs and pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She padded down the hallway to the open-plan lounge and kitchen to find Seb with his head in the fridge, giving her a very nice view of a tidy rear covered in denim. His bare feet poked out of the bottom of his jeans.
She stepped around a pile of luggage that had been dumped beside the couch. A brown leather jacket was draped over a duffel bag and a motorbike helmet sat on the floor beside a pair of sturdy boots, the boots that had been stomping down the passage. There was a thick layer of reddish-brown dust covering everything.
She ducked through the kitchen and into the dining area, where she stood on the far side of the table, putting some distance between them. Despite the fact that he looked like something created by Michelangelo and appeared to be related to the owner of the house, she wasn’t prepared to take his word for it just yet. Until she’d decided he wasn’t a serial killer she wasn’t taking any chances.
He stood up and turned to face her. His chest was now covered by his black T-shirt—that was a pity—and he had two small bottles of beer in his hand.
‘Beer?’ he asked as he raised his hand.
Luci shook her head.
He put one bottle back in the fridge, closed the door and then twisted the top off the other bottle and took a swig. He watched her as she watched him but he didn’t seem as nervous as her. Not nearly.
He stepped over to the table, pulled out a chair and sat down. He pushed the chair back and stretched his legs out. He was tall. His legs were long. He was fiddling with the beer bottle and she couldn’t help but notice that his fingers were long and slender too.
He lifted his eyes up to meet her gaze. ‘So, sleeping beauty, do you have a name?’
‘Luci.’
‘Luci,’ he repeated, stretching out the two syllables, and the way the ‘u’ rolled off his tongue did funny things to her insides.
‘So where’s my big brother? And why are you in my bed?’
Luci swallowed nervously. His bed? Of course, his room, his bed. That warmth in her belly spread lower now, threatening to melt her already wobbly legs just a little bit more.
‘I didn’t know it was your bed. I didn’t know anyone else lived here.’
Callum hadn’t said anything but she’d never actually spoken to Callum. Not that she was about to divulge that bit of information. That would just come across as odd. Her dad’s practice manager had organised the whole house-swap thing. Luci had exchanged emails with Callum and had been intending on meeting to swap keys but he had messaged her to say his plans had changed. He’d left Sydney a day earlier than they had discussed so he’d left a key under a flowerpot for her, but she was certain he hadn’t mentioned a brother. Not at any stage.
So what did this mean for her house-sitting plans? Would Seb ask her to leave? Would Callum?
‘So where is he?’ Seb wanted to know. ‘Should I be checking the rest of the house? You haven’t done away with him, have you? Did he treat you badly and you’ve sneaked in here to have your revenge?’
Luci laughed and wondered about the type of women Seb associated with if that was the direction his thoughts took him. ‘He’s in Vickers Hill.’
‘Ah, Vickers Hill. You mentioned it before. Where is that exactly?’ Seb arched his right eyebrow again and Luci found herself wondering if he could also do that with the left one. The idea distracted her and she almost forgot his question.
‘In South Australia. In the Clare Valley,’ she explained as she stepped into the kitchen. She needed to put some distance between them. To give herself something to do, she switched the kettle on, taking a mug and a green tea bag from the cupboard.
Seb took another pull of his beer. ‘What is he doing there?’
‘He’s gone to work in a general practice. It’s part of his studies.’ She didn’t mention that he was working with her father. If Callum wanted his brother to know what he was up to, he could tell him the finer details. But Seb not knowing Callum’s movements only led to more questions. Where had Seb been? Why didn’t he know what was happening? His room certainly didn’t look inhabited. It had looked exactly like a guest room, which was what Luci had expected. There had been no sign of his presence other than a few clothes in the wardrobe, which she had assumed was the overflow from Callum’s room. But perhaps those clothes belonged to Seb.
‘So, if Cal’s in Vickers Hill, what are you doing here?’
‘We’ve done a house swap,’ she replied as she poured boiled water into her mug.
‘A house swap?’ he repeated. ‘How long are you staying?’
‘Eight weeks. Until Christmas.’ Please, don’t ask me to leave tonight, she thought. She was half-resigned to the fact that her plans were about to change but she really didn’t want to pack her bags and find somewhere else to stay in the middle of the night. This was her first trip to
