Page 25 of Taylor’s Warrior

She sighed like a lovestruck teen. She was sooooo stimulated right now…

Witnessing him washing his pickup in a state of semi-undress had been one thing, but it hadn’t fully prepared her for this. Rhys Dalton had exactly the kind of physique that inhabited her fantasies on a regular basis. Long and lean, not too muscular, with an aesthetically pleasing scattering of dark hair across his pecs, and an intriguing arrow pointing due south. The swim briefs left just enough to her imagination to make her mouth water.

When she’d first seen him dressed like that, her reaction had been visceral and raw—he was no longer an irritation in her life, or even a bodyguard protecting her under duress, but a man to whom she was attracted in a way that made her tingle in all the right places. Thoughts of him made her so hot, she could set off a fire sprinkler system.

“So, when are you going to stop watching me rack up the lengths and join me in the pool instead?”

Absorbed in her fantasies, Taylor hadn’t noticed the subject of those fantasies had exited the pool and was dripping just a few feet away from her, while he toweled that spectacular body dry. She turned her gaze in his direction and scanned upwards, from his toes, past his muscular thighs and incredible abs, to his dark hair, all tousled after he’d roughly attempted to dry it.

She pushed her sunglasses up her nose—not that they needed it. “Who said I was watching you? I’m reading.”

“I know when I’m being watched, fy nghariad.” He took a seat on the chaise lounge to her right and resumed toweling his hair. “Are you trying to put a spell on me?”

Taylor raised an eyebrow. “A spell? Are you insinuating I’m a witch, Mr. Dalton?”

His expression portrayed a scandalized innocence that didn’t fool her for a moment. “A witch? Would I do such a thing?”

She couldn’t help it. Before she had time to think, Taylor grabbed a cushion from the vacant chaise to her left and hurled it at Rhys with all the strength she could muster.

Somehow, in less time than it took her to blink, he dropped the towel, caught the cushion, and deposited it on the chaise beside him. The roar of laughter that accompanied his lightning-fast move was so unexpected that she was incapable of defending herself when he lunged toward her, scooped her up in his arms, and held her close to his chest. She dropped her book and instinctively flung her arms around his neck.

“I think it’s time you got wet, Ms. Markham.”

Her mind went at light speed to the gutter—she was already wet, but not in the way he meant. The fact the threat was accompanied by a broad grin did nothing to prevent fire rushing to her cheeks. Had she been wearing a bikini instead of a one-piece, the sensation of his hands on her bare skin would have turned that fire into a conflagration.

“What are you doing?” she shrieked. “Put me down. Right now.”

He strode to the edge of the pool. “Oh no. You’re going in the water.”

He couldn’t possibly be intending to throw her into the pool. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t I?”

And to be fair, he didn’t.

What he did do, contrary to her suspicions, was jump in with her still in his arms. Taylor spluttered as her head disappeared beneath the water, and while Rhys released her legs, he kept her pinned to his torso to ensure she surfaced with him.

However, something was missing.

“My sunglasses! Where are they?” she spluttered.

She flailed around wildly—not because they were expensive designer frames, because they weren’t—but because she needed to focus on something other than the hard, muscular chest inches from her nose and the strong arm anchoring her to it.

“They haven’t come to any harm. I’ll get them for you. Are you okay?”

The gentle, sincere concern in his voice somehow calmed her instantly—not only that, it shifted her focus back to the one place she desperately needed it not to be, and that was on him.

Especially the part of him that was pressing against her belly.

“I’m fine. Wet, but fine,” she elaborated. “Are you insane? Whatever possessed you to do something as crazy as this?”

“Self-preservation,” he replied glibly. “When a beautiful woman launches a lethal weapon at me…”

Taylor’s brain imploded, torn between how he’d referred to her and his classification of a cushion as a lethal weapon. Modesty addressed the latter first.

“Lethal weapon, my ass. It would have bounced off of you.”

As the last word left her lips, her eyes zeroed in on his mouth—the mouth that had called her beautiful. The mouth that at one time, she would have vehemently denied wanting to kiss, but right now, she could barely hold off doing it. Her ability to think and form words—forget sentences—evaporated beneath the heat she imagined those lips were capable of generating. Unable to help herself, she tilted her gaze up a notch.