Page 82 of Marrying the Nanny

“I feel so posh being on it, let alone having it to ourselves. I’ve taken a million photos. You don’t mind if I share them with my family, do you?”

“Share them with everyone you know and include the link to the reservation page. You laugh, but I’m serious.” He was smiling, though. “I like your laugh.”

Shyness dropped over her, instantly turning a companionable lark on the water to a date—with all the hidden expectations she had never mastered.

“Can I ask you outright—” Ugh. She hated that she was this useless at romance. “Are we having sex tonight?”

He paused in sipping his water. “Do you want to have sex tonight?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, searching his expression for anger or disappointment.

“Then we’re not.” He took a drink, set his glass aside. “We’ll have sex when you say, ‘Hell yes, we’re having sex. I can’t wait a minute longer.’ And mean it.”

She chuckled weakly. “No pressure.”

“Exactly.” He twisted to face her on the bench. “It’s fine that you have mixed feelings about sex, Em. We both have baggage. Mine is emotion and you’re going to have to be patient with me on that. I don’t like intense feelings. The minute I start feeling something deep, I smell dynamite and push it away. I know I have to overcome that for Storm, but I’m going to need help.”

She had to bite her lips against a wobble. He sank past her defenses so easily, lodging against the empty spaces, muffling the voices that said she had nothing to offer a man.

Meanwhile, he was straightening in his seat, expression closing as though even that admission had been too uncomfortable for him.

“Thank you.” She set her hand on his thigh. “I never thought of myself as unsafe in my marriage, but it feels really good to know I can talk or try—fail, even—and you won’t make me feel bad about it.”

“Never,” he promised, meeting her gaze with shadows of concern in his.

It hurt a little to let him see the depths of her humiliation and sense of inadequacy, but it was a relief, too. Like setting down a shield she’d been carrying for years.

He started to reach out, but wound up resting his arm on the back of the bench as he grimaced and made a self-deprecating noise.

“I’ve never been the cuddling type, but I want to hug you, Em. See? I don’t know whether to trust my impulses, either.”

She leaned in, tucking her smile into the hollow of his shoulder. His arm came around her and his mouth touched her temple.

Emotions swelled in her. Happiness and gratitude and optimism for their future. She lifted her head.

“Do you want to make out a little?” she asked.

“Hell yes, I do.”

She pressed her smile to his and they kissed lightly. A greeting. It slid into steamy as easily as he shifted her to straddle his thighs, so she was kneeling on the bench seat. The table behind her was an uncomfortable edge in her lower back. She arched into him to avoid it.

She liked the hollows of male hunger that came into his expression as she rocked into a more comfortable fit atop him. It made her feel powerful as she ran her hands with ownership across his strong shoulders and kissed him back with a voraciousness so new, she didn’t know where it came from or even how to control it. His mouth was perfect, catching at hers, letting her lead, taking control, gentling before he ravished her again.

His hand on the back of her neck urged her to kiss him with all the lascivious and flagrant passion she had in her and she did, only distantly aware that his other hand got under her ass and coaxed her to keep rocking against him.

He was hard, which excited her all the more. She was hot despite the cooling breeze off the water. She was likely to burn from the inside out, she was so turned on by this—just a kiss. It was startling enough that she slid her mouth to the salty juncture of his neck where his collar concentrated the scent of his body against his skin.

“I like your hair down,” he said in a voice that scraped deliciously across her skin. “It’s pretty.” He combed his fingers into it, and he brought her back for a plundering kiss.

Her heart was pounding so hard it scared her, but she splayed her knees wider, and he slouched a little lower, picking up his hips to meet the grind of hers.

It was filthy. Adolescent. Probably the most erotic thing she’d ever done because she was doing it with him. They were completely in sync and she loved it.

His hands streaked down and up under the back of her shirt, fingertips skating in a tingling caress that tickled enough to make her arch again.

He hissed in a breath through clenched teeth and one hand held her hip, firming the contact that was incredibly acute despite two layers of denim between them. Then his hands came up, cruising across her waist and ribs, thumbs giving a light, tantalizing brush as he traced the bottom of her bra.

As her nipples pinched with anticipation, his touch redirected, sliding up under her arms, lifting her shirt and urging her to raise her arms so he could remove it.

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