Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 153: Intimacy

Chapter 153: Intimacy

Minutes later, Mia stood on one side of the huge couple mirrored bathroom in Neil’s room, blowing her hair dry, while Neil shaved on his side of the mirror. Instead of using the smaller bathroom in the other room, which was what she thought he had intended to do when he asked her to use his bathroom, he’d used this one, too.

There was a strange sort of intimacy involved in sharing a bathroom with a man, Mia thought, even though the huge couple bathroom was divided by a glass, she still thought it was intimate. Because the sounds were there...the sound of his shower being turned on while she was in hers, and now the sound of water running in the sink while he shaved, she could hear everything clearly.

When she had first gotten into the shower, she’d carefully draped one of the huge fluffy towels over the clear glass wall between them so that she wouldn’t be on display if he were to turn towards her side, a precaution that had proved to be wise.

Wrapped in another one of the gray towels she found in the closet, she stepped out of the bathroom to head for her bedroom to get her clothes when Neil called out behind her, "You can wear something from the lady’s closet in my room."

Startled because they hadn’t spoken since their joint bath, she turned around and saw him standing at the sink, a towel like hers knotted around his slim hips, half of his face covered with shaving cream.

"No," she declined, she wouldn’t be caught dead wearing another one of the clothes that obviously belonged to one of his women. "I wore one last night, and it didn’t feel right to me." She said.

Helplessly spellbound, Mia watched him tip his head back and stroke the razor up his neck and jaw as he said, "Somehow, I knew you were going to argue about that, too."

Mia gave him a smug smile. "It’s nice to win a debate with you for a change."

She walked into the bedroom and over to the chair where she had put her clothes last night but to her utter surprise.... They were gone.

For a split second she gaped stupidly at the chair as if her clothes were going to materialize, then she realized who must have taken them. Turning on her heel, she marched back into the bathroom, a displeased look on her face. "If you took my clothes away because you want me to wear one from that closet, then you’re wasting your time, Mr. Wayner!"

Neil flashed her an amused look before he continued stroking the razor over his cheek as he said, "Now that’s a good way to entice a man with insatiable appetites like myself, having you wander around here all day in nothing at all."

Mia adopted the stern tone she used with stubborn boys at the orphanage, a cool warning that said, ’You are pushing your luck, young man.’ "Neil, I am doing my best to keep my composure—"

Neil stifled a busrt of laughter because he thought she was utterly adorable when angered and refused to reply to her.

Neil!" she said darkly, her voice taking on a more authoritative edge as she advanced towards him. "I demand that you retrieve my clothes from wherever you’ve hidden them this instant and hand them over to me."

With his shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter, Neil leaned down and splashed water on his face, then he grabbed the towel hanging around his neck to dry off. "And if I refuse, Miss Harrison?" he mumbled from behind the towel, "What then, will I receive a spanking like a naughty child?"

Mia had dealt with enough stubborn young boys to know better than to show her frustration and lose valuable ground with this stubborn grown man, who always wanted things to happen his own way rather than go with the flow. He’d taken her clothes to force her into wearing something his other women had obviously worn whenever he’d brought them here on some vacation. Even the red dress she’d worn yesterday had made her feel like she was nothing but a casual fling by wearing a dress meant for his women.

With an emphatic firmness, Mia stated very clearly to his face towel, "I am not negotiable on this issue."

Neil tossed down the towel and turned, a glamorous white smile sweeping across his clean face. "You are the most stubborn female I’d ever encountered," he said with sincere admiration. "And the only female who could speak to me the way you do without getting hanged for it."

Mia barely heard what he was saying, because she was now staring in blank shock at the the sexy, charismatic male she’d liked in Ivy Grove. Her Mr. Ice Cube, the same man who’d made her had sleepless nights for years.

Until that moment, Neil Wayner the man had never quite looked to her like Mr. Ice Cube the substitute professor, so it had been easy to ignore who and what he had been. Five years inside a prison had hardened his face and etched lines of strain at his eyes and mouth, making him look older and harsher, but all that had changed in one night...

Now that he was well rested, sexually satisfied, and freshly shaven, his face was back to how she’d known him, even more handsome than he’d been before going to prison that she stepped back in nervous surprise, as if he was a now a complete stranger.

"Why are you looking at me like I have hair sprouting out of my nose?" He asked, puzzled.

The voice was familiar. She knew the voice. That was reassuring. With a mental shake, Mia forced herself to stop her ridiculous thoughts and return to the discussion under way. More determined than ever to win, she crossed her arms over her chest and said stubbornly, "Give me back my clothes."

Neil perched a hip on the edge of the long marble vanity and, mimicking her posture, he crossed his own arms over his chest, but he was grinning, not angry. "Not a chance, sweetheart. Pick something new out of the closet."

His endearment sounded casual and meaningless to Mia because she believed he’d used that on many others before her. She was so frustrated and off balance at that realization she felt like stamping her foot. "I want my—"

"Please," he interrupted quietly. "Pick something from the closet."

But when she opened her mouth to argue again, he added flatly, "Because I tossed your clothes in the fireplace."

Mia knew she was outsmarted by him, but the thoughtless way he had gone about burning her expensive clothes, which she’d worked hard to buy, hurt and angered her. "They may have seemed like disposable rags to the country’s former richest wastrel," she scolded, "but they were my clothes. I worked to pay for them, I bought them, and I liked them!"

Finished speaking, she turned on her heel and headed for the female closet, unaware that her parting words had hit its mark with more deadly accuracy than she could ever have hoped. She walked into the closet, ignoring the expensive dresses and skirts hanging on the racks on both sides of her and headed for the back where she pulled down the first pair of trouser and sweater she came across.

Holding them up to her waist to see if they would possibly fit, she decided they would and pulled them on. The trouser was a soft blue cashmere and a matching turtleneck sweater that had delicate violets with dark blue leaves woven into the full sleeves. Finished wearing the clothes, she grabbed a black fur coat on her way out of the closet, paused to put it on, turned around, and almost collided with Neil’s bared chest.

He was standing in the doorway, his hand braced high on the door frame, blocking her exit. "Excuse me," she said, trying to walk around him without giving him the courtesy of looking up.

His voice was as unyielding as his stance. "It’s my fault you’ve had to wear the same clothes for the past four days. I just wanted you to have something else to wear so I wouldn’t feel guilty every time I looked at your clothes."

Wisely leaving out the fact that he had also been longing to see her in something beautiful and fine that was worthy of her face and figure, he whispered, "Would you please look at me and let me explain."

If Mia had known that she was the first woman in Neil’s entire life whom he would bother explaining himself to, she wouldn’t have overreacted. The clothes in the female closet had been arranged by Liam a long time ago when he "borrowed" the cabin from Neil to invite one of his women on a vacation. Everything in the closet were brand new and expensive.

Unaware of this, Mia had more than enough stubborn courage to withstand the force of his persuasive tone, but she wasn’t so angry that she couldn’t understand his logic of wanting her to change clothes, nor was she unmindful of the foolishness of spoiling what little time they had with a pointless argument.

"I hate it when you ignore me and stare at the floor like that," he remarked. "It makes me feel as though you think my voice is coming from some insignificant insect down there, and you’re searching for it to step on."

Although Mia had intended to graciously look up at him in her own time, she lost it at his humor and ended up collapsing against the clothes behind her, laughing. "You are completely unbelievable," she giggled, raising eyes filled with mirth to his amusing silver ones.

"And you are completely wonderful," he whispered.

Mia’s heart skipped a beat at his solemn expression, but she reminded herself that he was Neil Wayner, an ex-soldier who had lived his life by assuming many false identities and personas, as she had just been forcefully reminded. It would only cause her more pain later if she began treating what were merely casual pleasantries to him as declarations of deep affection.

When she didn’t respond again, Neil smiled and headed for the bedroom. Over his shoulder, he said, "Let’s put on some thick coat and go outside if that’s what you still want to do."

Mia gaped at him in utter disbelief and hurriedly followed behind him, she spread her arms out wide, looking down at her clothes and making him look too as she said, "In these clothes?! Are you insane? These cashmere pants must have cost a fortune!"

Recalling how much Liam had complained to him about the high price of buying those cashmere, Neil knew it indeed cost a fortune, but he didn’t say that to Mia. In fact, he was so eager on getting her to go outside, which he knew she’d very much wanted to do, that he put his hands on her shoulders, gave her a little shake, and said much more than he’d meant to tell her.

"Mia, the person who bought all those clothes has completely forgotten about their existence. He doesn’t care if you wear the cashmere or__"

Before he finished the sentence, he couldn’t believe he had been foolish enough to reveal so much to her. He’d sworn to not implicate Liam in any of his escape mess, but now he’d given her a clue he’d not meant to give.

Mia’s eyes were wide with shock as she realized he wasn’t the one who bought the clothes but another man who obviously knew he was staying here, and Neil could see her mind working even before she said, "You mean you didn’t buy those clothes? Does that mean someone else knew about this cabin? That person must know of you staying here then. Isn’t that a terrible risk for him to take, I mean knowing about your escape__"

"Stop it!" he ordered more roughly than he intended. "I didn’t mean anything of the sort!"