Know Your Heart: A New Zealand - Tracey Alvarez Page 0,41
flickering near his jaw.
“You would’ve said no.”
She didn’t need to close her eyes to picture his smirk if she’d dared admit she was desperate for a bath and then a shower, where she could shampoo and condition her hair without running out of water.
“Because I’m the kind of man who’d enjoy some payback.”
“I didn’t mean that.” She dropped her gaze to his throat and the bob of his Adam’s apple.
“Yeah, you did. And I’ve done little to show you otherwise.”
She lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Nate wouldn’t have remained friends with someone lacking in moral character. You’re a good man.”
The certainty of the verbalized thought reverberated through her. She was speaking the truth. Besides, Nate had grown choosy about his friends—no way in hell would he hold his tongue about her living under Glen’s nose if he thought the man was a threat.
“Good? Moral?” He gave a soft snort and shoved the wallet into the back pocket of his jeans. “There’s nothing good or moral in what I thought about when I saw you in that tub.”
“What…?” She licked her lips, grimacing at the faint chemical taste of bath oil. “What did you think about?”
He stared hotly at her for three loaded beats then closed the remaining gap between them. His chest bumped into her fist, which still clutched the towel edge.
“I thought about how much I wanted to climb in with you, clothes and all, and I calculated the time it would take to have you screaming my name as you came undone in my arms. I thought about if I should stop at the pharmacy for protection after I got Tom’s backpack.” He breathed in raggedly. “But then I thought I was probably just another asshole trying to get into Savannah Payne’s panties.”
Her breathing, already driven fast and light with the hard gallop of her heartbeat, fluttered unevenly. She uncurled her fingers from the towel edge and rested a palm on his chest. The solid warmth of him under her fingers awakened something inside her that flexed, tentatively expanding into a tiny glow. “Who do you see when you look at me?”
“A sex goddess.”
She scrunched her nose, and the corner of his mouth kicked up. Half a smile—that was a good sign, right?
“I’m teasing.” He tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear, and his fingers lingered.
The gentle touch sent pleasurable shivers on dual paths down to her nipples, then they re-joined in a hot throb between her thighs.
“I see a woman who looks just as good dripping wet as she does in her pretty yellow dress. I see someone who only lets a few people she cares about catch a glimpse of the heart underneath impenetrable armor”—his thumb stroked over her cheekbone—“I admit, I don’t care much for Savannah Payne, but Savannah Davis? I like her. And I badly want to know her better.”
“In the carnal sense?”
He touched his forehead to hers, warm skin pressed to her chilled flesh. “In every sense.” Then he pulled away after a brief touch of his lips.
Glen opened the front door. “I’m leaving before I remember I haven’t had sex for six months and do you up against the wall anyway.” He nodded over her shoulder. “Go on back to your bath, but the next time you sneak inside, it better be into my bed.”
Resisting the urge to drop the towel and tempt fate, Sav braced her trembling legs. “You should take a trip to the pharmacy.”
Glen gave her a hundred-percent smile that if she’d currently had any on, would’ve incinerated her panties to ashes.
Chapter 7
Whoever claimed Bounty Bay was a secret paradise on earth hadn’t experienced a spring storm.
Glen closed his laptop, stood, and stretched the kinks out of his shoulders and back. With Tom asleep on the office futon after a couple hours of begrudging study, Glen had thrown another split log onto the fire and propped his feet on the coffee table. Time to work.
Dark clouds had gathered from the south as he’d driven back with Tom’s backpack a few hours ago. Outside, wind screamed around the corner of the house and exploded through the trees, sounding like an army of crazed cheerleaders shaking their pom-poms.
He crinkled his nose. Cheerleaders and pom-poms? If that was the best analogy he could come up with, his dad’s opinion of his writing being a time-wasting hobby was right. Before he could travel down that well-worn and thorny path, a sharp bang from the back of the house snagged