A long, shrill whistle soon cut through the men’s voices. The men fell silent. They covered their ears with their hands until the whistle stopped. From her position on the bed, Ansley watched a woman accompanied by another man walk into the middle of the gathered men. Ansley figured this had to be Roan’s sister. She gave each of her brothers a look that said she’d heard more than enough. She then took charge of the situation. Roan’s sister pointed at Leif. “You should have known better. Going into Roan’s bedroom while Roan wasn’t there, you were only asking for trouble. And well you know it.” She turned to Kye. “Make sure Leif goes downstairs and stays there until we come down for breakfast.” Kye nodded then waited for Leif to walk past him before he too left. She turned to the rest of her brothers. “Jager, Skylar and Dirk, get the hell out of Roan’s bedroom unless you want to be thrown out the same way he threw Leif out.”
Each man looked around as if they noticed for the first time where they were. None of them turned to look at her. They filed out one by one until only Roan’s sister, the man who had arrived with her, and Roan remained. Ansley found herself in awe of his sister. She had managed to rein in all her brothers with very little effort on her part, which Ansley thought had to be no small feat. Even though Roan’s sister was tall for a woman, her brothers still towered over her, and had three times the muscle mass. His sister cinched the belt of her housecoat tighter around her waist. She walked into the bedroom and made her way over to the bed. Her long light blonde hair looked a little mussed as if she’d just gotten out of bed. She smiled at Ansley. “We haven’t been properly introduced yet. I’m Saskia York.” She nodded her head in the direction of the hallway. “Over there is my husband, Eli.”
Ansley nodded at Eli, then returned Saskia’s smile. “I’m Ansley Conry. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise. Sorry about that. Leif tends to be a bit of a knucklehead at times. He’s harmless. He just wanted to yank Roan’s chain.”
“Which he succeeded in doing,” Roan said drolly. He moved over to the bed and sat down next to Ansley. He turned to her. “I hope he didn’t bother you too much before I threw him out.”
Ansley shook her head. “No, he didn’t. He just brought up my overnight bag and asked if you and I had a chance to talk yet.” Roan and Saskia exchanged a meaningful look. Ansley could only guess what it meant.
“I’ll go have a chat with Leif,” Saskia said to Roan. “He had no right to ask that. I’ll make sure he keeps his nose out of where it doesn’t belong.”
Roan got up and kissed Saskia on the cheek. “Thanks. Now if you don’t mind, I’m sure Ansley would like to get up.”
Saskia nodded. “I’ll see the two of you downstairs shortly.” She went back out into the hallway to her husband. Eli wrapped an arm around Saskia’s shoulders. “Just don’t take too long or you’ll end up with nothing to eat for breakfast. The food supply is starting to get a little low. For punishment, I think I’ll send Leif out to do the grocery shopping.”
As the other couple walked away, Roan shut the bedroom door. He then came back to the bed and lay down on top of the sheets next to Ansley. “If I had known Leif would pull a stunt like that I wouldn’t have left you alone.”
Ansley turned to her side and brushed her lips against his. “No harm done, but I can think of a way for you to make it up to me,” she said in a husky voice. Roan chuckled. “After last night, I thought you would have had enough of me by now.”
She lifted herself up on her elbow and let her gaze run down Roan’s body. He only wore a pair of jeans and nothing else. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you.”
He reached over and slapped her on the butt. “Insatiable, aren’t you?”
“Only when it comes to you.”
“I’m glad you feel that way, but I think you’d better get up before I never let you out of here. For one thing you must be starved. I know I am. And Saskia wasn’t kidding when she said we had better not take too long. There is a good chance my brothers will eat all the food before we get down there if we aren’t lucky. You can have the bathroom first.” Roan pointed to the en suite bathroom. “There’s a shower in there too. So help yourself.”
At first, Ansley thought maybe she could persuade Roan to change his mind, but then her stomach started to growl. Considering Roan and she had not once left his bedroom last night, not even to eat supper, Ansley knew she had to be running on fumes. With a sigh of regret, she slipped out of bed and grabbed her overnight bag on her way to the bathroom. She felt Roan’s gaze follow her as she stepped inside and shut the door. Ansley decided she would satisfy her hunger for food, then she would satisfy her other hunger.
Chapter Seven
After both she and Roan had showered, they went downstairs. Ansley still couldn’t get over the size of the house, or the luxuriousness of it. She would never have guessed in a million years that Roan and his brothers lived in a mansion so tastefully decorated. From what she had seen of the house so far, it looked as if a professional interior designer had decorated it. Given the amount of money Roan and his family had to have to afford a house such like this, Ansley figured they probably had used an interior designer. When they reached the large front foyer with its black and white checked marble floor, Roan led Ansley toward the back of the house. Even before they reached the kitchen, she smelled the scent of food cooking. Her stomach rumbled. Arriving at the kitchen, Roan pushed Ansley toward the large kitchen table that sat in the middle of the big room. “Go sit down next to Saskia and Eli and I’ll get us some food.”
Much to her surprise, all of Roan’s brothers sat at the table calmly eating. She had thought they would be rowdy here same as they had been upstairs earlier. Taking the empty chair next to Saskia, she looked down the table. The men nodded their heads in her direction when she met each of their gazes, except for Dirk who hadn’t looked up from the financial section of the newspaper he read. Roan returned with two plates. Each held a very large omelet that completely filled the plate. He set a plate in front of her before he left to get the two cups of coffee she saw sitting on the counter. Ansley looked down at her plate. She was hungry, but she wasn’t that hungry.
Saskia leaned over and whispered in Ansley’s ear, “Don’t worry about it if you can’t eat all that. The guys tend to forgot that not everybody can eat like they do.”
“If I ate this much all the time I would be as big as a house,” Ansley said laughingly.
“Same here.”
Roan came back to the table and handed Ansley a cup of coffee. “I hope the two of you weren’t talking about me when I wasn’t here.”
Saskia rolled her eyes. “No. I just told Ansley that she didn’t have to feel obligated to eat all that food you gave her. You must think she eats like a horse like you do.”
“Sorry about that, Ansley.” Roan pushed his plate closer to hers. “You can put what you don’t want on my plate. I’ll eat it for you.”
Cutting the omelet in half with her knife, she pushed one half onto his plate. “That should be enough.” After Roan moved his plate back in front of him and started to dig into his food, Ansley turned back to Saskia. “So how long have you and Eli been married?”
“Just a little over a month.”
“So you’re still newlyweds then?”
“You could say that,” Eli said from Saskia’s other side. He gave his wife a heated look.
A muffin flew through the air and hit Eli dead center on his forehead. “Knock off the goo goo eyes, Eli,” Leif said. He sat across and a little down from Eli. “Take it to the bedroom so the rest of us don’t have to be subjected to it. We are trying to eat you know.”