pointed to a louvered door to his right. “In there.”
“Okay, then. Let’s see if I can figure this out.” Securing the pile of towels under her chin, she opened the door and stuffed the load into the washer. After tossing a scoop of detergent in, she stared at the knobs for a few minutes.
“Mind if I throw a few more things in with those?”
The hair on Brooke’s neck came to attention when she realized he was standing immediately behind her. She sensed his heat, smelled his cologne and finally got up the nerve to look at him over her shoulder. “What do you have in mind?”
He pointed to a laundry basket sitting atop the dryer. “My underwear and a few pair of socks.”
She surveyed the pile of briefs in the basket. Not surprising. He seemed like a brief kind of guy. “I have room for a few. Nothing worse than being down to your last pair.”
“I ran out two days ago.”
That thought conjured up all sorts of questions she didn’t dare ask. She didn’t have to.
“I’m going native,” he said. “That’s what we used to call it in college when we ran out of Jockey shorts. In case you’re wondering.”
She had been wondering, and going “native” seemed an appropriate description. Right now she was having some fairly primitive thoughts about the man behind her. “Do you want me to teach you how to use the washer?” Her voice came out highpitched and shaky.
“Nope. I can handle the washer. I manage fine with my left hand.”
Then why hadn’t he? Maybe he was playing on her sympathy, knowing she’d feel sorry for him and engage in some menial tasks. Then again, maybe he truly didn’t have the energy.
After tossing a few pair of underwear into the washer with the towels, Brooke turned to find Jared Granger seated at the table. He’d actually retrieved a basin and filled it with water while she’d been taking care of the laundry. So he wasn’t helpless after all. But he was gorgeous sitting there with his bare chiseled chest and tousled blond hair. A woman could sure get a thrill running her hands over all that sinewy muscle.
Brooke slapped the thoughts out of her brain. For goodness’ sake, it wasn’t like she hadn’t seen a half-naked man before. Just not any who had the kind of sensual aura that made women take a second look. A third look…
What was it about him that made her feel all soggy inside? Why did she respond to his questionable comments when she had learned long ago not to react to anything with sexual undercurrents where patients were concerned? Where any man was concerned, for that matter.
Right now she didn’t care to dissect her reaction to Jared Granger. Right now she only had to help the man shave. And Lord help her, she hoped she survived it.
Three
The woman had great hands, and she had them on him.
With a cheerful smile, Brooke lathered Jared’s jaw with shaving cream, patting his cheeks like a kid having a fine time playing in the mud. But the way his body was reacting, she might as well have her great hands farther south.
Nope, he wasn’t dead. At least not all of him. Jared realized that the moment she’d started cutting away his beard. There was something innately intimate about a woman doing this to him. About Brooke Lewis doing this to him, he corrected. Who would’ve thought that something as elemental as getting a shave would be such a turn-on?
He shifted in his seat on that thought.
“Hold still,” she said. “I don’t want this all over me.”
Jared met Brooke’s gaze to find she was concentrating on getting the shaving cream in all the right places. Hell, at this rate, she’d be here until dawn. And he’d be a raving lunatic because, at the moment, her breasts were about level with his mouth. If he moved just a hair forward, he could plant his foamed-up face right into her knit-covered cleavage.
“Do you want to try it?”
Oh, yeah, he did. Thankfully she moved away before he could give everything over to impulse.
“I think you’ve done enough playing with the lotion,” he said. And it was playing on his nerve endings in a not too bad way, as well as other places.
She put the can of cream down on the table beside her and picked up the razor. “I meant do you want to try using this.”
“I already have. I nicked myself about fifty times the last time I gave it the old collegiate try.”
“Okay. Let’s see if we can figure this out.” After placing the razor back on the table, she removed the towel she’d draped over his chest, shook out the hair clippings onto a newspaper she’d placed on the floor, then bent forward again to reknot it at his neck. All the while, Jared considered what it would be like to grab her around the waist, pull her between his parted legs and plant a kiss on that sassy mouth of hers.
He damned his near loss of control. What was it about Brooke Lewis that had his imagination running helter-skelter? Because she’d treated him as though she understood his dilemma? Because she was a woman and readily available? He only wished that were the case. It was more complicated than that. She was more complicated than that.
“Okay, let’s get started.” Moving behind him, she grabbed up the razor and handed it over his shoulder.
“Let’s see what you can do with this.”
He curled the offending object, his recent nemesis, in his left fingers and stared into the mirror she’d set up on the table. He managed to shave his left cheek okay, and his jaw with only a slight nick. But when it came to his upper lip, no go. If he tried to use his right hand to manipulate his nose, his stiff fingers got in the way.
When he did give it a shot, the razor dropped onto his lap. They both reached for it at the same time.
“I’ve got it,” he said, rougher than he’d intended. But her hand was just inches away from dangerous territory. And one bad thing about going native—tough to hide your sins. His fingers weren’t the only thing that was stiff.
She cleared her throat. “I see what you mean about this being hard.”
That was the understatement of the millennium. “Yeah, it’s hard, all right.”
She moved to his side, a soft blush staining her fair cheeks. “So I’ll just help you this time, and hopefully you’ll get some more use out of those fingers in the near future. Then you can go back to doing it yourself.”
That wasn’t at all what he had in mind. “Ah, now, that’s no fun. Why would I want to do it myself when you could do a much better job?”
Her dark eyes narrowed. “Do I look like a slave to you?”
No, but she sure looked great with her hair curling around her face and her full lips trying hard not to smile. “Seems to me, Ms. Lewis, that since I’m in the chair with a cracked leg and a sorry hand, and you’re holding the razor, that pretty much makes me a slave to your whims.”
“Put
