Page 56 of Mr. Dangerous

I made my way up the stairs, trying to shake off her words. Of course, as awful as she was, she was right that I didn’t have a handle on normalrelationships.

Her words finally fell away when I walked back in and Naomi smiled across the room. She sat up in bed, her elbows propped up on herknees. "Hey."

"Hey," I said softly as I closed the door with my shoulder, my arms full of breakfast. I would avoid the subject of The Lurking Grandmother for now, for both oursakes.

I threw myself down on the bed besides her and tossed the big white pastry box into her lap. "As good as bacon? Better than bacon? I don't know. Certainly faster thanbacon."

She lifted the flap and inhaled deeply, a look of pleasure coming over her face. It made me stir with longing all overagain.

"What's in there?" I looped my arm around her waist. I'd all but skipped the deserts during the Kate incident, eager to be away from the lunch table. I had wanted to escape Grandmother's conversation with Kate and the awkward small talk withSenatorGray.

"All kinds of delicious things," she said, poking through them. "I have missed leftovers from your familyparties."

"So would you like it if I moved back to RhodeIsland?"

She looked up with her teeth already half-sunk into a cannoli, her eyes widening. For a second, she looked like a sexualized ad for a bakery, and I had to stifle a laugh. She chewed thoughtfully, as if she were evaluating the pastry for a state fair ribbon, and swallowed. She was clearly in no hurry to answer thatquestion.

"I think we both know that would never happen,"shesaid.

"No," I said. "It wouldn't. I'm married to my SEAL team. Just...curious."

"Mm, that's not the kind of thing you get to be recreationally curious about," she said, but her tonewasmild.

"If you happened to move to San Diego, I wouldn't bedismayed."

"Well, Rob, in this hypothetical alternate universe, I wouldn't be dismayed about you moving to RhodeIsland."

There was powdered sugar on her pink lower lip. So I kissed her. Ihadto.

Naomi paused for a second, very still, and then she threw the cannoli back into the box and wrapped her arms around my neck. She kissed mehungrily.

I slid my hands around her waist. Her skin was soft and warm, and I let my hands roam her body. When my palm stroked over her thigh and slipped upwards, she jumped, but she smiled. I threw my thigh over hers, trapping her there as Icaressedher.

She moaned softly into my shoulder, and I felt the growing wet heat of her on my fingers. I kissed her shoulder, her breast, the soft curve of her stomach. My lips pressed against herthigh.

The door opened, and Grandmother walked in quitecasually.

"Oh!" Naomi said, diving beneath the sheet. She pulled it out of my hands as I, dumbfounded, rolled off the bed. I grabbed the blanket that hung at the foot ofthebed.

My heart pounded like I was a teen boy caught in the middle of some very personal act as I flung the blanket around my waist, but I sounded steely-cold and angry when I asked her, "What the hell do you think you're doing inmyroom?"

"Oh," she said, pressing her hand to her heart, "I'm so sorry I interrupted youtwo,Rob."

"Why does that not have the ring of sincerity?" Iasked.

From here, I could see Naomi tented under the sheet, the look of consternation written across her beautiful face. But Grandmother wouldn’t be able to see Naomi from herangle.

"Believe me, this is embarrassing for all of us," she said. "Grandparents do not want to think of their grandchildren as sexual beings any more than grandchildren want to think of their grandparents as sexualbeings..."

"Stop.Talking."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "So you're feeling better about that familycurse?"

"There is no familycurse."

"Really? Your father lost the two most important women in his life under highly tragic circumstances. I could have sworn you thought you and your brothers were damaged goodsnowtoo..."

"Nope," I said. "As has been pointed out to me lately, I'm a well-educated, gentlemanly Navy SEAL with a decent family fortune. I don't think I'm a badcatch."

---