Page 16 of Temptation at His Door

Ronan shook his head. “How the hell do you do that?” he asked, stepping into the room.

Joa lifted her head to look at him. “Practice.”

Dropping her legs to the floor, she released her arms to stretch out into one of the few yoga poses he could name. “That’s the child pose.”

Joa’s bare shoulders shook with what he presumed was amusement. “Very good. You do yoga?”

“Uh, no.” Thandi had, for a few months in between her pregnancies, but she’d never gotten beyond the basics.

“It’s great for stress relief.”

But her outfit wasn’t. Her exercise pants had sheer cutouts in the thighs and calves and her matching top, ending just beneath her breasts, and showing off a tight, super flat stomach, had the same sheer cutout bridging her breasts. Beneath the black Lycra and sheer material was creamy, rich skin.

She’d pulled her hair up into a pile on top of her head and she wore no makeup. She didn’t need it.

God, she was beautiful.

Joa walked, her bare feet not making a sound, across the big room to pick up her phone off the small table tucked into the corner of the room. She tapped the screen, the music abruptly stopped and silence dropped into the space between them.

Joa picked up a bottle of water and walked back to him, her light eyes on him while she sipped. “Why are you here, Ronan?”

He couldn’t remember. All he could think about was slapping his mouth onto hers and rolling that Lycra down her hips and the top up and over her breasts, revealing all that skin to his appreciative eyes. Conscious that his pants were tight and that air felt scarce, he pulled the water bottle out of her grasp and took a long, reviving sip.

The cold water didn’t help him at all. He still wanted her.

Crap. Dammit. Hell.

“Ronan?”

Ronan handed the water bottle back and scrubbed his face, wishing he could dispel the image of those long, strong, supple legs wrapped around his hips, her nipple in his mouth. He held up his hand. “Give me a minute.”

“Are you okay?”

Ronan shook his head. No, he was drowning under a tidal wave of lust, looking for air as desire swamped him. He hadn’t felt like this for years, if ever. He’d loved Thandi with every fiber of his being but he’d never felt such instantaneous, heart-stopping lust. Never, not even with the wife he still loved and still mourned.

The wife who wasn’t here...

Ronan pushed back his grief and his guilt at feeling the way he did, focusing his attention on why he was here, what he needed. He wanted more than anything to leave the room, to walk away from Joa with her light eyes and milky skin and bendy, amazing body. But unfortunately, he needed her help.

“I need a favor,” he muttered, noticing that his voice sounded rough. From desire or irritation? Or a combination of both?

Joa didn’t respond except to raise her already arched eyebrows higher.

Dammit, he hated asking for help, especially from a woman whom he needed to avoid, but he was, as his English stepmom used to say, in a pickle. “I need someone to look after the boys, tonight and tomorrow night.”

Joa lifted her bottle to her lips and frowned. She shook the bottle and then he realized that he’d finished her water. He gestured to the empty bottle. “Sorry.”

“I can get more,” Joa replied. “Why are you askingmeto look after your boys?”

“My brothers are going to London to meet with a cantankerous, reclusive collector, and Tanna, my sister, has also gone back to the UK. I haven’t found another nanny yet and Keely is—”

“Out of town.”

Ronan jammed his bunched fists into the pockets of his beige chinos. “Yeah. I’m stuck. I mean, I could hire a babysitter but I don’t like strangers around my kids, in my house.”

Joa cocked her head. “Where are you going?”

“China. I need to run a sale in Beijing.”

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