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“Of what sort?” He’d said nothing untoward. Oh, he’d meant it, and the look he was giving her said much more than his lips needed to, and they both knew it. But if the brazen filly thought she could just waltz in and stare at him while he was buck-ass naked in the tub, he was damn well going to make her say it.
“Of a…a physical sort,” she said, and his grin widened. Her bravado slipped a little when sex was on the table. She really needed to stop making his life so interesting. Saying no to her was getting more and more difficult.
“Isn’t that what you’re offering?” he asked.
She closed her eyes briefly and let out a long-suffering sigh. Yeah. He tended to have that effect on people.
“I offered lodgings,” she insisted.
“Yes. Inyourhome.”
She swallowed hard and shifted on her perch so she was a little farther away from him. “Myhouse. Not my bed.”
“Ah. Well, that’s too bad, then.”
Her scowl had him chuckling. “Don’t pretend you’d be running to sign the papers if I was offering something more,” she said.
He shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know.”
As a gambling man, he really shouldn’t try and call her bluff. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been wrong. The last time he’d gambled on a woman’s heart, they’d both barely survived. And if she suddenly said, “Okay, let’s go,” he wasn’t all that sure what he’d do.
Well, that’s not true. He had no doubt he’d be out of the tub and halfway down the street in search of the preacher and a pen with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist before he came to his senses. But he also had no doubt hewouldcome to his senses before it was too late. Probably.
She watched him, her eyes narrowed to slits for a moment, and then something in her demeanor changed. The look in her eyes was less wary and more…speculative. Her features softened, and she gave him a sweet smile that had him frowning and hunkering back down in the rapidly cooling water. Nothing he had learned about this woman so far made him trust that innocently sweet smile on her face.
“You know, I suppose you are right,” she said, leaning forward before leaving her perch altogether and moving over to the edge of his tub.
“I am?” Did his voice just squeak?
“Mm-hmm.” She nodded and leaned a little closer, perusing him over one coquettishly arched shoulder.
“There are other advantages to marriage that I hadn’t really considered before.”
No, no, no, no. She was just bluffing, right? She had to be. Totally bluffing. Stone-cold poker-face bluffing. Right?
“Are there?” He forced the words out, even though his mouth suddenly felt like he’d been licking the dirt road out front, and pressed himself back against the side of the tub as far away from her as he could get. Which wasn’t all that far.
“So I’ve heard, at least. Having a wife presents a man with certain…comforts he can’t get on his own.”
“Comforts?”
She bit her lip and nodded, and he was pretty sure if she did that again, the water he sat in would start boiling just from the heat rushing through his veins.
She leaned over him, reaching across to the other side of the tub, and he sank down in the water up to his chin. She grasped the bar of soap and held it up.
“Do you mind?”
“Mind?” he echoed, his voice barely audible. He managed to shake his head, and she smiled again, sinking her hand beneath the water to start rubbing the soap across his chest.
He froze, afraid if he moved, her hand would slip lower where he desperately wanted—no,didn’t, didn’t want it to go. “What are you doing?”
“Bathing you,” she said with a little giggle. “Just like a good wife would.”
All right, who was this woman and what had she done with Nora? The Nora he knew, and yes, he realized he didn’t know her all that well yet, but the Nora he knew would never make that tittering little sound that passed for a laugh.
Some of the tension bled out of him. Well, most of him. She was good. But two could play at this little game.
“You would bathe me?” he said, sitting up to give her better access. He watched her hand move across his chest with a sort of morbid curiosity. How far was she going to take this bluff of hers? Because shehadto be bluffing. There was no way she’d had that fast a change of heart. Sure, he presented a rather stunning specimen lounging in the water as he was, but he wasn’tthattempting.
