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The toe of Mike’s bare foot hit the side of the tub and he went into a crouch, extending the cup. “Got it?”
She curled her fingers around the cup, brushing the tips along Mike’s knuckles. “Thanks. Can I ask you two more favors?”
“Sure.” He backed up, still averting his gaze from the tub.
“Can you bring me that T-shirt of yours I wore to bed last night, and can you get a fire going?”
“Absolutely.” He smacked the doorjamb on his way out and called back, “That T-shirt looks a lot better on you than me, anyway.”
Claire placed the cup on the edge of the tub and slid down until the water lapped at her chin. She blew out a breath, creating a flotilla of bubbles.
She’d set the stage even though Mike had been too much of a gentleman to take a peek at her bare breasts. She cast her eyes downward. Yep, she still had ’em.
Mike tapped on the door again. “Here’s the T-shirt. I’ll hang it on the doorknob inside and work on that fire.”
The white T-shirt swung on the handle as Mike snapped the door shut. Claire’s mouth twisted into a frown. Seemed as if she needed to work on that fire.
She flicked up the stopper with her big toe and yanked the towel from the rack. She shivered as she patted herself dry. It was time to warm up—for real.
She pulled Mike’s T-shirt over her head and released her hair from its knot, the tendrils at her neck damp. Fluffing her mane, she leaned in close to the mirror and touched up the drugstore makeup on her face leftover from yesterday.
A full-on makeup job would look a little ridiculous, but she was no twentysomething who could get by on good bone structure alone, especially after the night they’d just had.
Tugging on the hem of the T-shirt, she made her grand entrance.
Mike looked up from his phone, and something flickered in his dark eyes, something almost predatory. Her long catlike stride faltered as those butterflies took up flight again in her stomach.
She was supposed to be the aggressor here, so she pinned back her shoulders and continued her saunter toward the love seat facing the fireplace. When she reached it, she fingered the edge of a blue blanket.
“I thought since you were wearing a T-shirt, you could use the extra warmth.”
“Thanks, but this fire feels great.” She dropped to the edge of the love seat and held up her hands, palms out, to the flames dancing in the fireplace. Being bundled up in a blanket would hardly add to her sex appeal.
“I can get you closer.” He came up behind her on the love seat and pushed it and her a few feet closer to the fireplace.
Reaching around, she squeezed his biceps. “You’ve got some muscles there, big boy.”
“What are you doing, Claire?” He straightened up and folded his arms over his chest.
Her cheeks blazed as hot as the fire. She’d been such an idiot. Just because the man had never been married, it didn’t mean he didn’t have experience with women and wouldn’t catch on to what she was trying to do. With his looks and manner, he probably had women across the globe trying to seduce him on a regular basis—women a lot more adept than she.
“I thought...” She bit her bottom lip to stop the lie. Tears puddled in her eyes at her pathetic behavior. “I just didn’t want to take a backseat to Tempest, even though I know that’s where I belong.”
The tight look on Mike’s face dissolved and he clambered over the back of the love seat, as if he couldn’t wait to be next to her. “What are you talking about? You are my priority right now. You’re not in the backseat and you don’t deserve to be in the backseat.”
She laced her fingers together and dropped her head to study her nails. “The minute I told you about Caliban, you got this look in your eye—a gleam of excitement and anticipation—like you’d finally found a purpose in this whole tangled web.”
“Am I really that transparent?” His big hand covered both of hers. “That pathetic?”
“Pathetic? You? I’m the one who plotted a seduction to make you like me again.”
“Really? You were seducing me?”
She snorted. “Now, that’s pathetic. You didn’t even realize that was a seduction.”
