Page 71 of The Baby-whisperer and the Brute
“I don’t know. I didn’t think so. Maybe it’ll pass quickly.”
No such luck. The drops hitting the surface of the pool and the roof over our heads steadily grew in size and speed until it was a full-on gusher.
The waiter, who huddled close to the table now, stared at his phone. “The radar shows a pretty big system moving up from Connecticut. There’s a lot of red and yellow coming this way.”
Uh oh.Angelina put into words what I was thinking. “Claire’s afraid of big storms.”
“I know.” I grimaced. “If she hears thunder, she’ll get up and come looking for us.”
“Looks like we’re making a run for it then,” she said.
I nodded, turning to the waiter. “We’ve gotta get back to the house. You guys are welcome to hang out in the pool house until it’s over—or as long as you want. The bar in there’s fully stocked.”
“Really? Thanks man—I mean, Mr. Reece.”
I smiled at him and slipped several folded bills into his hand. “Thanks for the great service. Have a good night.”
Then I offered my hand to Angelina. “Ready?”
She wince-smiled and nodded, and we stepped out of the gazebo onto the wet lawn, breaking into a run and sprinting up the grassy incline to the house.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Knockout
Angelina
Sully and I burst through the back door into the kitchen, dripping and laughing.
“I think mybonesare wet,” I said. “I could barely even see where we were going out there.” Belatedly I added, “Oh, I hope we don’t mess up the floors.”
“It’s just a little water. And the cleaners are scheduled to come tomorrow,” Sully said.
I nodded. “Still, we should go to the laundry room and not drip through the whole house.”
We crossed the kitchen toward the adjoining laundry room where we could put our wet clothes right into the washer.
Thankfully there had been no thunder and lightning—yet—and the baby monitor was still quiet. Only the gentle shush of the girls’ white noise sound machines could be heard.
Hopefully neither of them would wake—or at least not until we’d had a chance to dry off and change.
Once inside the laundry room, Sully began stripping off his wet garments, completely free of body shame the way so many athletes seemed to be—not that he had anything to be ashamed of.
On the contrary, he was in better shape than he’d been when I’d first met him, and that was saying something. When he pulled his sopping shirt over his head, I experienced a headrush that caused me to wobble a bit on my feet.
Muscle upon muscle rippled beneath the wet, satiny skin. His arms, chest, and shoulders were just massive, and unless I’d forgotten how to count, his abdomen now featured aneight-pack.
He smelledphenomenal.
Standing so close to him in the tight quarters of the laundry room, I had the craziest urge to lean forward and lick the large vertical tattoo that covered his right ribs.
It spelled “family,” and the Y ended at just the top of one of the v-lines that disappeared beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs.
Sully plucked a clean folded towel from the top of the dryer and started rubbing himself with it.
“You okay?” he asked, his voice a soft rumble in the quiet space. “You’re just standing there.”
I shook my head and blinked rapidly, trying to fight off the mesmerizing pull I felt toward his body. “Yeah. Yeah sure. I’m just... a little cold.”
