Page 51 of Mr. Fixer Upper
“I feel lucky to be alive every day,” she countered. “Maybe a little extra today, though.”
“Okay, kid. One more,” Eddie said, shuffling papers. “Who’s taking care of you?”
That one almost tripped her up, Gannon noted. Of course Eddie was fishing—under orders, probably. But there was no way she was admitting that Gannon King had stormed her shower, bathed her, changed her dressings, and spent the night in her bed.
“We’re a family here on Kings,” she answered primly. “We take care of each other.”
Gannon had heard enough. He stepped in blocking Rico’s shot. “Okay, that’s enough,” he announced. “Come on, Paige. I’ll take you back to the hotel.”
She looked relieved and immediately slipped the mic off her shirt. She put up a fuss about leaving, but it was all for show. Gannon got as far as having Cat stuff Paige’s bag in the truck when she slipped away from him. He found Paige back at the interview tent where Tony was in the hot seat while Eddie led him through his questions.
“Fuck,” Gannon muttered and stormed over. But Paige stopped him. So he forced a bottle of water on her and stood with her while she showed her silent support for Tony.
Tony was a big lug of a guy who bore a striking resemblance to Billy Joel. He was quick to laugh and slow to take offense, and he was very, very good at his job.He was a little awkward on camera, Gannon noted, but Eddie smoothed him out easing him into the questions. He walked him through the whole thing a couple of times, and just when Gannon was getting anxious enough to pick Paige up and carry her to the truck, Eddie asked the big question.
“Some camera guys would question why you stopped shooting and got involved.”
“Some camera guys are assholes,” Tony shrugged without missing a beat. He glanced over to where Paige stood and winked. “There’s a difference between ratings and life and death. We’re not saving the Amazon here. We’re making a TV show. No ratings are worth losing Beast Mode over.”
Paige ignored protocol and gingerly stepped around Felicia and her boom to hug Tony.
The corner of Eddie’s mouth quirked up, and when Paige and Tony took a second to wipe their eyes, Gannon saw he’d managed to get exactly what the network wanted without violating them too much.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Paige woke in the early dredges of dawn to the now familiar feel of Gannon’s heat enveloping her. She breathed in his scent. He’d slept in her bed for the past three nights, and every morning she’d wake with the weight of his arms around her, his scent and heat comforting her.
They’d never discussed it.
It felt too… intimate.
And Paige hated to admit it, but she thought if they did talk about it, he’d stop coming to her bed. As bad as an idea that she knew it was, she still wanted him there.
She was healing, slowly but surely. The throbbing pains were fading to dull aches, her bruises and scrapes changing colors and becoming less tender. The stitches would dissolve on their own, and providing she wasn’t leveled by another tent, she’d be just fine in another week.
There was just one issue she’d yet to deal with. She wanted Gannon King fiercely.
Seeing him naked had only tweaked her curiosity at what it would feel like to touch him. And when she woke up every morning, feeling him hard and throbbing against her back, well, it was getting harder to focus on maintaining a strictly professional relationship with him.
She’d never felt thisenamored. She supposed that was the right word. When they were on set, she found herself keeping tabs on him. And the long looks they’d shared were enough to send her blood humming. He hadn’t tried to kiss her again. Not since the day of the accident, and she worried that playing doctor had pushed him out of attraction mode and into the friend zone.
It should be a relief. She didn’t need a complication like Gannon. What she needed was to heal and to focus and in another year she’d finally be on the path she’d set for herself.
But.
There was something so right about being wrapped in his arms. She’d never been a cuddler. She liked her space in bed to sprawl as it suited her. But Paige had also never slept better in her life than she had these past three nights. Gannon’s warm body next to her was a comfort… and a torture.
She felt the steely length of his erection nestled against her lower back and shifted her hips back into him. God, she couldfeelhim throbbing against her, she thought, clenching her jaw. She wanted to roll over, to throw her leg over him and pin him down. Strip him of the useless boxer briefs he wore to bed, notch his cock in place, and ride.
She was starting to want that more than she wanted to steer clear of any kind of personal relationship with him.Entering the danger zone, she wrinkled her nose in the dark. But Gannon was in full-on nurse mode, making sure she wasn’t overdoing it, keeping track of her eating, her sleeping. It was annoying but sweet.
Her mother hadn’t been impressed with Gannon during the phone call Paige had been both horrified—and maybe a little gleeful—to hear about. Paige had gotten an earful of her mother’s criticism for her “friend’s attitude,” though that did come after Leslie had made sure her daughter was physically okay.
Her mother viewed Paige’s entire adult life as a rebellion of sorts. She was convinced Paige would eventually give all of this up and go to grad school for a respectable career. It wasn’t that her mother looked down on her, Paige thought. It was more that the St. James women had responsibilities to be respectable, contributing women in the world. A psychologist and a neurosurgeon, yes, were perfectly respectable. A field producer of a reality show just a handful of steps up from the all-out brawls of the housewife spinoffs? Not so much.
In fact, Paige was fairly certain her mother wouldn’t be any more thrilled with her documentary dreams than she was with the stint in reality TV. Unfortunately for Dr. Leslie St. James, she’d raised two independent, headstrong daughters, and Paige was going to shape her own life in the way she saw fit.
Gannon’s alarm sounded, and he stirred next to her. And for just a moment, Paige let herself pretend that it was a lazy Sunday morning in the offseason, and she’d have the luxury of rolling over and waking Gannon up in her own way.
