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"Don't you put your hands on me! Don't even think about it." Because her feet were tired, she pulled off her shoes. She kept one handy as a weapon, tapping it restlessly against her palm as she paced. "It wasn't bad enough that you told your family I'd been with you last night, you had the nerve to tell my mother to pack my clothes."
"I asked her," Josh corrected, hanging his jacket over the valet. "I asked if she would mind putting what she thought you'd need for a day or two in a bag. Until you had a chance to take care of the rest yourself."
"And that makes it all right? Because you said please and thank you? Which is certainly more than you said to me."
He flicked open the buttons of his shirt, worked out kinks in his shoulders. "I have no intention of sneaking around the way you did with your last choice of bedmates, duchess. If we're sleeping together, we do it, metaphorically speaking, in the open."
His shoes went next, then socks, while she fumbled through her mind for the right retort. "I haven't decided if I'm going to sleep with you again."
His gaze flicked up to her face, filled with both amusement and challenge. "Well, you should have said so."
It was her good luck that he was sitting on the edge of the bed. So much easier to look down her nose at him. "I didn't care for the way you behaved before I left here this morning."
"That makes us even." He rose, unhooked his trousers, and walked into the bath to turn on the water in the oversized whirlpool tub. "Now that we've settled that, let's stop playing the games you claimed we weren't going to play. We haven't finished with each other yet." Off went his briefs, on went the jets. "Now I want to work out some kinks before I go to bed. You're welcome to join me."
"You think I'm just going to pop into the tub with you? After you spent most of the evening ignoring me?" Men never ignored her, she fumed. Never. He was going to pay for that, if for nothing else. "And the way you were flirting with Kate?"
"Kate?" Genuinely surprised, he blinked at her. "Jesus, Margo, Kate's my sister."
"No more than I am."
Unsure whether he was amused or just plain tired, he stepped down into the tub, lowered himself, and let the hot bubbling water do its job. "You're right, she's not. Let's put it this way. I've always thought of Kate as my sister." His eyes rested on hers before he laid his head back and sank down. "I never thought of you that way. But, if you're jealous…" He trailed off with a shrug.
"I'm not jealous." The very idea was appalling to the pride. "I'd have to give two good damns to be jealous. I'm making a statement. Will you open your eyes and pay attention to me?"
"I'm paying attention. I'm too damn tired to open my eyes. Christ, for someone who couldn't wait to throw down warning flags about not getting too serious, not tangling each other up with strings, you're acting more like a nagging wife than a casual lover."
"I am not nagging." Then she closed her mouth, afraid she might have been close to doing so. "And I'm certainly not acting like a wife. From what I've observed about wives, any one of them worth her salt would have booted you out on your pointy head by now."
He merely smiled, dipped down a little lower. "It's my penthouse, baby. If anyone gets booted out on anything pointy, it'll be you."
Her hand clamped down on his head. From the advantage of surprise and leverage, she managed to hold him under the churning water for ten glorious seconds. It was even worth the water splashing out on her white linen suit when he surfaced, sputtering.
"I believe I'll get my bag and check into another room."
He caught her wrist, hard, threw her off balance enough that she had to stoop down to brace on the ledge of the tub. Their eyes met, locked.
"You wouldn't—" She stopped herself before uttering the D word, but already implied, it was too late. He yanked her into the tub and, as she hissed and spat like a cat, wrapped his arms around her and shoved her under.
He contemplated the ceiling for a few seconds as she kicked, hummed a few seconds more as she thrashed. Then pulled her up by the hair.
"You bastard. You goddamn—"
"Whoops, not done yet." He cheerfully dunked her again. The tub was big enough for four, which was handy because she was slippery and he needed room to maneuver. By the time she was gasping and trying to drag her sopping hair out of her eyes, he'd already dealt with her jacket. He was working on removing the clinging wet blouse.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I'm getting you naked." He flicked open the front hook of her bra. "I'm not feeling tired anymore."
Eyes narrowed, she shifted quickly so that her knee was pressed dangerously close to his crotch. "Do you have some sort of incredibly lame, essentially male idea that being manhandled arouses me?"
It was a tricky one, he thought. "Yeah—in a manner of speaking."
She increased the pressure. "Whose manner of speaking?"
"Ah…" He took a chance, reached out to rub his thumb gently over her nipple. It was pebble hard. "I might have resisted if you hadn't dared me." The pressure eased off slightly, and he figured it was safe to breathe again
. "I want you to stay with me, Margo." His voice was soft now, barely a murmur as he stroked a hand up her leg. "If you'd rather book another room until you've thought about it, that's fine. If you're not in the mood for sex, that's fine, too."
