Page 54 of Marrying the Nanny

The door rolled closed behind him. The tiny lock snicked. There was a swish of water and a squeak of a naked body against porcelain.

“I thought you were at Sophie’s,” he called, talking to the ceiling while his brain refused to release the image painted across his mind’s eye. Gleaming ivory chest. Small pink nipples that had been pinched with cold. Her smooth belly and round hips, a neat thatch of hair between pale thighs.

Rule one, he reminded himself as a very earthy, natural, uncontrollable spike of lust pulled behind his fly.

“I should have locked it before I got in.” Her small voice, hollow in the steamy bathroom, penetrated the ringing in his ears.

The humid fragrance of honey and cucumbers, melon and anise had followed him out, imprinting on him while he discovered he could see behind him and through walls, easily able to picture her buried in the bubbles. A smooth knee, a wrinkled toe, shoulders stiff and apprehensive when she ought to be lying there relaxed.

This was a stupid sitcom moment. They ought to be laughing it off, but all he could think about was stripping down and joining her. He actually grabbed his collar and pulled, trying to let some heat out.

“I’m going upstairs.” He didn’t wait for a response.

Chapter Ten

OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod.

“I’m going to Sophie’s now,” Emma blurted twenty minutes later, after she had cut short her bath and died a thousand deaths in her bedroom. She had taken the time to dry her hair and dress, but couldn’t look at Reid as she grabbed wine from the cupboard.

Reid stayed behind the open door of the freezer in the side-by-side refrigerator.

“Call if you’d rather not stumble through the dark getting home.”

“I have a torch. Flashlight,” she translated. “Bye.”

She went down the hill so fast she ought to have skinned her hands, knees, and chin. Thankfully, she was the first to arrive. Biyen was with his dad for Easter. Art had gone to the pub to watch hockey.

“Pour fast, pour tall,” Emma said as she clomped her bottle onto the kitchen table. “Reid saw me naked.”

Sophie paused in putting a brie wheel into the oven. “On purpose?”

“No. He walked in on me climbing from the tub. I’m mortified.”

“Why? You got crazy stuff down there?” She waved at Emma’s downstairs.

“Just the usual, but it’s private.”

“You’re shy?” Sophie gave her a smile that said, That’s cute.

Sensitive, but she didn’t explain. It struck Emma that she had confided her lack of sexual self-esteem to Reid, but not to her best friend. What did that mean? Probably nothing. Except, right now, it meant everything. Argh!

“I don’t see you streaking through the village,” she muttered, accepting the corkscrew Sophie handed her.

“Reid won’t make a big deal of it. Logan would be an ass, but Reid has seen it all and will shrug it off. Those boys used to get a lot of offers.”

“Ew.” And ouch. She didn’t want to be shrugged off. That’s what was really stinging, she realized. The fear that he had been repelled by her. She’d made a big deal about how she wouldn’t throw herself at them and now she felt like she had. He hadn’t exactly been overcome. More like he hadn’t been able to get away fast enough.

She wished he had been an ass. Teased her and laughed it off. The fact they were both so uncomfortable made it a bigger deal than it ought to be.

“What did he say?” Sophie prompted.

“That he didn’t mean to. He thought I was here. I didn’t stick around to deconstruct it.”

“You’re fine,” Sophie assured her, clinking her wineglass with Emma’s. “It’s not like he heard you fart.”

“He could have! I don’t exactly hold back when I’m alone in the tub.”

“More bubbles, right?”

---