Page 37 of Fundamentals in Flirting

“No. We need to wash this plaster off you before it irritates your skin.”

I wriggled and wriggled, unceremoniously hanging upside down, but unable to escape his death grip on my thighs.

“You know, you could have been a fireman if you’d wanted to! You don’t have to re-enact these fantasies with me.”

“This is just one of many fantasies that I would like to re-enact with you,” he muttered.

We left the house, going back out into the bright sunshine. I was banging about like a sack of potatoes, while he was walking languidly as if I weighed little more than an empty handbag. Reaching down as far as I could, I smacked his backside hard enough that my palm stung. But he just laughed and smacked me back, softly, on my airborne derrière.

“Easy, tiger. There’s plenty of time for that sort of thing after we’ve got you all clean.”

Before I could come up with a sufficiently indignant or cutting rebuke, I was transferred into a bridal hold, and simultaneously dangled over a very overgrown and decidedly sludgy-looking pond.

“You wouldn’t dare,” I hissed.

“Wouldn’t I?” He grunted as I squirmed furiously in his arms, loudly shouting for help, but his expression was patient and amused. Dangerous. “I’m doing this for your own good, Hannah.”

“If I’m going in, so are you!” I declared mutinously.

He chuckled and raised an eyebrow, and as he went to launch me into the pond, I thrust one hand into his left armpit and began to tickle. His upper body twisted violently in surprise, causing him to lose his balance and trip on a broken paving stone, so that we both toppled forward. At the last minute, Teddy contorted his body and as we hit the water, he took the full brunt of the impact, me straddling his waist as we both became almost fully submerged in two feet and twenty-plus years of stagnant water, rotting leaves, and pond scum.

Breaking the surface mere milliseconds after me, Teddy gasped.

“Fuck, that’s cold and it stinks like foetid arse!”

Tugging my waterlogged jogging bottoms back up to my hips, I stalked out of the pond, hauling myself onto the patio area. I was preparing to give him a piece of my mind, which became inexplicably empty the minute I looked at him.

The filthy water ran down his body as he stood, T-shirt clinging to him like a second skin. It was practically transparent, the planes and angles of his torso all highlighted for my viewing pleasure. But it was the moment when he reached up and ran both his hands over his hair, biceps flexing, pushing the damp curls and pondweed from his forehead, that my mouth ceased to produce any saliva. I felt like the living embodiment of Miss Elizabeth Bennet standing on the pristine lawns at Pemberley, and shamelessly ogling a delicious and dripping Mr Darcy. And while historical romance films were not really my thing, even I’d had inappropriate thoughts about Colin Firth in a wet shirt.

I finally dragged my greedy little eyes back up to his face only to catch him staring back at me, cheeks lightly tinged with pink. Following his gaze, I looked down to see that my T-shirt was also now almost entirely see-through, giving him an unobstructed view of the decidedly unsexy turquoise sports bra I had on. Teddy swallowed, suddenly appearing desperate to look anywhere other than at me.

“I think perhaps we should get changed,” he said gruffly, opening and closing his fists as if dealing with some sort of inner turmoil, a dark intensity etched on his features.

“Good idea,” I agreed, and fled back to the kitchen to retrieve my own clothes. And any shreds of dignity I may once have had.

ChapterThirteen

Hot, clean water from the shower was definitely preferable to slimy pondwater for washing plaster out of my hair. The smell of decay steadily swirled away down the drain, along with some rather dubious-looking pond-based detritus. But every time I closed my eyes, a video reel of Teddy looped behind my lids, meticulously focussing on the visual splendour of the emerging-from-the-water scene. Or him leaning against a door frame with a mischievous smile. Or him almost kissing me in the car. Furiously scrubbing my fingers over my scalp, I tried to recall him falling on his arse as he was butted by a blind goat, but my brain simply turned it into a cute and adorable moment, his grumpy, slightly fearful expression now endearing and not at all annoying.

Gah! What’s happening to me?

I needed a healthy dose of reality to reset my Ted-ometer back to “infuriatingly irritating” and away from “eminently likeable”. I needed to stop this stupid crush in its tracks.

Swiftly wrapping my hair in a towel turban and pulling on clothes, I headed to the kitchen for a consolatory cup of tea, affectionately scratching Lady Fraser on the chin as I passed by, empty mug in hand, when my door buzzer rang.

“You could have just come straight up,” I said as I swung the front door open, but instead of Teddy, who I was expecting any moment for his own ablutions in my bathroom, I was greeted with a wide pair of hazel eyes, floppy sandy hair, and a smug expression.

Shit.

“Jonathan! What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, Hannah. May I come in?”

No you bloody well may not!I screamed inside my head. But my body was already moving aside and beckoning him in.

Damn you, polite English sensibilities.

Jonathan stepped over the threshold and appraised the small confines of my flat in a single glance with a curious expression. Lady Fraser let out a low growl from behind me and slunk away, belly low to the floor, eventually disappearing into my bedroom.

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