Dirty Work Read online

  Which meant there was absolutely no reason for her to be standing there as the rising sun streaked the sky in the colors of candy floss, wracked with...nerves.

  But then, though she’d seen Dylan in all sorts of places over the years, she’d never actually come to his home. Not since his home had been a room in college, same as hers.

  And even then, now that she thought about it, they had spent most of their time together out and about, studying, or taking in Oxford, eating or drinking, or going on long walks.

  It was funny that she’d never really thought about how intimate it was, really, to turn up at a person’s house.

  Uninvited.

  Ten thousand miles away, without warning.

  She took a deep breath, then shivered, because it was cold. It was August, which meant she’d flown out of a surprisingly warmish England straight into an Australian winter. The air was crisp, chilly and almost sweet. Dylan’s house sat across from a green park that ambled its way out to the cliffs and then down to the beach, with nothing blocking the sea air. Or the views.

  If Dylan wasn’t home, another very real possibility she hadn’t allowed herself to consider before boarding the plane, she could go down and stick her feet in the water. Then set about finding herself an appropriate hotel.

  And the minute Jenny started thinking about hotels, it seemed obvious that she should have started there. She should have found herself a place to stay, had a nap and a bite to eat, maybe not in that order. And then when she got her bearings, maybe even tomorrow, she could try to figure out where Dylan might be.

  Instead of appearing on his doorstep, in all her long-haul state.

  She laughed, under her breath, staring out at all that gleaming, deep blue. What was she like? She’d told no one in England she was leaving, she had simply gone. She’d been sitting in her flat, supposedly looking through some or other book of wedding-related items, but she couldn’t concentrate on any of it. Invitations, flowers, the lot.

  She’d found herself on her mobile instead, texting Erika in Berlin. They’d been discussing one of their favorite television shows, but something Erika had said to her before Jenny’s ornate engagement party had rung about inside her head, like a bell gone mad.

  You’ve never been fucked properly.

  Jenny had been mulling that over, torn between outrage and curiosity, ever since Erika had said it.

  What she’d concluded was that she’d actually never fucked anyone at all. She’d had sex. More often, she been forced to contend with declarations and talk of lovemaking—a word she found deeply embarrassing. The boyfriends she’d had in the past had all been decent enough. But sex had always been a pleasant afterthought. Never the main parts of any relationship.

  There had never been fucking.

  And the more she thought about what fucking properly would entail, the more she thought about Dylan. Who’d had more sex—phenomenally addictive sex, if the girls who followed him around, desperate for more of his attention, were any guide—than Jenny had had in her entire life.

  Dylan, who made women swoony. Dylan of the dark hair, green eyes and wholly Irish, devilish grin. It had never been hard to understand why women got silly around him, but Jenny had always felt a bit smug that she wasn’t a part of that mess. That her relationship with Dylan was purely platonic, always had been and always would be.

  But as her wedding date drew closer, it dawned on her that she really was going to be expected not only to marry Conrad in all his icy, intimidating splendor, she would also be expected to sleep with him. It would be her job to produce heirs to the Vanderburg and Markham fortunes and whatever she might have begun to think—or worry—about her own deficiencies in the bedroom, since apparently none of it had been proper, she was absolutely certain of one thing. A man like Conrad, with the personality of an iron spike encased in a glacier, could not possibly introduce her to proper fucking.

  Out there in the dawn of a new day in Sydney, Australia, a literal world away from almost everything and everyone she knew, Jenny found herself gripping that stone he’d put on her finger.

  Conrad was the man her father wanted her to marry. And luckily, Conrad was not cruel. Erika liked to pretend that he was, but Jenny knew that her friend tended toward the overdramatic. In all the time that Jenny had known Conrad, he had never been vicious. He had always been the same as he was now. Measured. Controlled. And very, very focused—on other things.

  All of these things would likely make him an excellent husband. And hadn’t Jenny read a thousand articles about how arranged marriages were far more stable than romantic ones? It was entirely possible that she’d fall head over heels in love with Conrad someday, since they had so much in common and he was her father’s first choice for her. It was just that she would have to see if that was possible after the wedding, not before.

  Something inside her shook a bit, and she pressed a hand to her belly, wishing that she’d eaten something a little more substantial than airline food.

  And wishing that her first holy spontaneous action in recent recall hadn’t been quite so over-the-top. Surely she could have gone out and hit up a yoga retreat, or gotten quietly pissed somewhere. Rather than leaping on a plane and flying all this way.

  Suddenly, she felt foolish. Jetlagged, famished, exhausted, a bit dizzy from all of the above and deeply silly as well.

  Had she really flown all the way to Australia so she could quiz her best friend on what constituted proper fucking?

  Jenny let out a laugh, and the sound of it was loud on the quiet street. The hotel idea was looking better and better. She tried to stand up straighter, wishing she hadn’t sent her cab off. She raked a hand through her hair, deciding to be kind to herself and not imagine how limp and wrung out she must look. Instead, she tied it up in a knot on top of her head.

  She had come all the way to Australia to learn about proper fucking—and to let Dylan bolster her spirits the way only he seemed to be able to do, sometimes. But she was still Lady Jenny, raised to be proper in all ways—except the one.

  That struck her as funny too, and she was thinking about how she would have liked so much to horrify her strict governess, back when she’d been a girl, with questions about fucking as opposed to the manners, comportment and ballroom dancing her father had deemed so important. If she could have built a time machine on the spot, she would have.

  And if there was time travel going around, she could also go back and turn Conrad down. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about the long, slow dive into an ice bath that she assumed her marriage would be.

  But that was disloyal. Not to Conrad so much, as she doubted very much he thought about her much, but to her father.

  She heard a sound, then. Low, male laughter. A higher-pitched, feminine voice. Then the door of the entryway next to the garage opened.

  The door swung inward, and Jenny was standing right there. On the curb only a few feet away. For a moment, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. She was too tired, maybe. It was as if she was looking through a kaleidoscope, all bright colors and strange shapes...but then she blinked and it all came into focus.

  Searing, distinct focus.

  She would know Dylan anywhere, even through a cracked open door, with his dark head bent over the woman he had up against the narrow wall of his entryway. She was clinging to him, wearing extraordinarily high heels, and what Jenny thought was a tiny miniskirt, though it was hard to tell. The woman’s leg was lifted in the air, and wrapped around Dylan’s waist.

  And they were kissing.

  Though kissing seemed a rather tame word to describe what Jenny was witnessing.

  It was too...carnal. The heat was so insane Jenny forgot it was winter. The woman was making little noises, moans even, and her hands snaked up to dig into Dylan’s hair. Or maybe the point was to arch her body into his.

  For his part, Dylan
was wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung jeans. Everything else was bare skin, acres and acres of golden, perfectly packaged male beauty. It wasn’t that Jenny hadn’t noticed that Dylan was shockingly attractive, because of course she had. She wasn’t blind. It was just that he was Dylan. And normally, when she saw women leaving him, she only saw the women looking starry-eyed.

  She’d never seen an actual action scene before.

  The kiss went on and on. Dylan’s hand, which Jenny had never noticed was so big or quite so strong looking, was on the woman’s ass, holding her in the perfect place for him to—

  But surely that was breaking the bonds of friendship. Surely she shouldn’t imagine what he was doing with that part of his body. Particularly not what was making them both make those sounds.

  And Jenny felt as if she’d been cast in stone and made into a statue of foolish astonishment, right there outside his house. Because she couldn’t move. She couldn’t pick up her bag and slink off in shame to hide off around the corner, at the very least, until this ended.

  One way or another.

  The embarrassment was so great that she felt her entire body heat up, and a melting sort of sensation sink through the center of her, seeming to pool down low.

  She told herself it had to be shame. Because what else could make her cheeks so hot?

  He murmured something into the woman’s ear that Jenny couldn’t hear. It made the woman sigh a little, then nod. The leg she had hooked over his hip slid to the ground, and Jenny watched as Dylan kept a hand on her body, steadying her.

  “All right, then?” he asked.

  “All right,” the woman said softly, then smiled in a way that made something curl around and around inside Jenny.

  All that heat and the melting, too, until she wasn’t sure she could breathe.

  Then they both turned, and of course, Jenny was still standing right there. Her cheeks so crisp and bright they hurt.

  But that didn’t hold her attention. What did was the way Dylan was looking at her.

  Because for a moment, she didn’t recognize him.

  There was something in that green gaze of his that she had never seen before. Something fierce. Hot and dark and dangerous, when Dylan was the least dangerous man she’d ever met. His face changed, too. He seemed bigger, harder, wilder—

  And as long as that kiss had gone on, this moment stretched out even longer.

  Jenny had the strangest notion that she had lost something. That something had shifted, permanently. It was that seismic. It was that terrifying.

  Nothing will ever be the same, a voice in her whispered.

  But he blinked.

  Then he smiled, and was Dylan again.

  “Christ, Jenny,” he said, his voice filled with laughter and charm and above all, safety. The way it usually was. “What the bloody hell are you doing in Australia?”

  Copyright © 2020 by Caitlin Crews

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  ISBN: 9781488062155

  Dirty Work

  Copyright © 2020 by Denise Smoker

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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