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“That just kills you to say, doesn’t it?”
She looked away from him, her pulse blazing. “I am trying to be conciliatory.”
“You’re not great at it.”
She almost laughed. “Would you leave me alone so I can get undressed?”
Silence crackled between them. “No. But I will turn my back until you assure me you are done.”
She opened her mouth to object but he spoke again. “I won’t have you fall and crack open your skull in my bathroom.” His eyes bore into hers. “I will not look.” And with that, he turned his broad, strong, fascinating, warm back and crossed his arms over his chest.
Georgia ground her teeth together. “You really have a God complex, don’t you?” She murmured, unzipping her jacket and dropping it to the ground, her hip propped against the vanity counter for support. Her shirt was far trickier as it was stuck to her body courtesy of how wet it was. With a few noises of effort, she eventually managed, dropping it with a splashy thud to her feet. She stopped short of removing her bra. She could shower in that, deal with it afterwards. Next, came her jeans, but while she could unfasten the button and zipper, pushing them over her hips required a strength and balance she didn’t have while her foot was in such dire pain.
“Damn it,” she muttered, closer to tears than she’d been in a long time.
“A problem?” And even though his tone was innocuous, she suspected she heard triumph in it and wanted to thump him.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“Believe me when I tell you, I am absolutely not.”
“Fine. Would you help me?”
“Would I help you?” He repeated, and she grimaced, well aware of what he was asking because she’d employed a similar technique with the boys, when she’d first become their guardian.
“Please,” she tacked on, sounding as though it were the last thing she wanted to say.
He turned, and any hope she had of this being a quick, clinical removal of her jeans died a fiery death when their eyes clashed and held. Her body seemed to jerk to life. To physically exalt in his proximity and her near-nakedness. Thanking the heavens he was still dressed, she stood her ground, trying to act as though her heart wasn’t racing and her pulse was rushing like a waterfall. But damn it, her nipples were tingling almost painfully and when his eyes dropped to her breasts, she knew he must have seen it through the flimsy cotton of her simple, white bra. She closed her eyes, digging her teeth into her lower lip, massaging it to will her body not to respond, but to Georgia’s absolute disgust, heat slicked between her legs and it was all she could do not to put her fingers there and give her body what it was suddenly so sure it wanted.
“My jeans,” she said, clearing her throat. Her voice wobbled with ambivalence.
“Si.” His own was hoarse. He stepped forward, and for the first time, she realized how big his hands were, when they gripped her hips, stayed there a moment, seeming to take up so much of the real estate of her body. She forced herself to look at the ancient marble wall across from them.
He smelled so good. It was his cologne, but it was also him; she tried not to breathe in out of self-preservation.
“They’re stuck to me,” she explained unnecessarily, because his hands moved lower, to the fabric, and he could feel for himself how tightly the fabric adhered to her flesh.
She held her breath as he pulled them lower, but she wasn’t embarrassed. Other emotions were at the fore, challenging her, confronting her, making her want to give in to an impulse she didn’t even understand.
His hands went slowly. Because the jeans were difficult to remove, or because he was as transfixed by the intimacy and familiarity of this as she was. After all, they barely knew one another. She didn’t know his name, his age, his profession, anything.
But that didn’t matter. All of those things felt superficial compared to the hum of desire threading around them, to the way he touched her, the warmth of his breath against her skin as he concentrated on removed her jeans without hurting her ankle, until finally, she was freed of the restrictive fabric and half hoped she’d never have to drag them on again. He straightened, his eyes not quite meeting hers.
“All done.”
“Yes,” she agreed, teeth chattering.
He nodded to the shower, his jaw set, and his mood cross.
“Would you like me to wait here?”
She shook her head swiftly. She couldn’t think of anything worse.
He nodded once, relief in his features. He reached for a towel, placing it on the counter, beside the stack of clothes he’d set out of her. “Call when you’re ready to get out. I’ll be just outside this door.”
CHAPTER THREE
IT WAS ONLY EARLY in the evening but that didn’t matter. Dante strode across the living room and poured himself a large measure of scotch, his hands shaking as he lifted it to his lips and allowed half of it to soothe his nerves. Only it didn’t soothe them. He wasn’t sure anything could.
