lilac-coloured eyes. When he could breathe again, he smelled summer raspberries and her own brand of hot feminine scent. The scent a woman exudes after a healthy bout of exercise. Or sex. He took this unique opportunity to draw it in slowly.
What had she said? Something about thinking…‘I wasn’t.’ If he’d been thinking he’d have engineered this scenario somewhere dry—on Belle’s Persian rug in front of a roaring fire, for instance. Minus the wet clothing.
‘I was reacting,’ he continued, ‘to your hare-brained idea of working outdoors in these conditions.’
‘It’s where most gardening’s done.’ She rolled a shoulder, the movement shifting her breasts against his stomach. He wasn’t sure, but he imagined he could feel two stiff nipples jutting just above his navel.
A spear of heat shot through his body, angling straight to his groin. Doing his damnedest to ignore it, he stared up at the sky again and continued with, ‘So is this your attempt to prove you’re responsible or stubborn or both?’
Her hips chafed against his as she dragged a trapped hand from between their bodies to push at her crinkled hair. ‘What’s a little rain, for heaven’s sakes?’
His gaze shifted to her face. To her eyes, irises dark with some unnamed emotion she refused to admit to. Her mouth, damp with rain and a tempting whisper from his own. He could kiss her now, drink in the freshness of raindrops and Ellie. ‘For one thing, it’s wet. And damn cold.’
She stared back at him, shook her head. ‘You indoor career types are too soft.’
He didn’t feel soft. And if she didn’t quit squirming against him like that she was going to find that out for herself.
And bingo: She went completely still, and when he looked, her eyes had widened. He watched the colour intensify, her cheeks turn a shade pinker before she scrambled up on her knees and pushed away. Up. Pieces of her now-shredded plastic poncho flapped like flags in the wind.
‘Stubborn, then,’ he muttered. He pushed up too, his jumper peeling away from the mud with a slimy sound. An instant chill cloaked his body. ‘We’d better get out of these wet clothes.’
Without looking at him she picked up her trowel. ‘You go ahead, I need to clean up here first.’
‘Leave it, I’ll come out later and tidy up.’
‘My job, I’ll do it.’
‘Fine. Catch pneumonia.’
Without looking at him, she stacked everything in the barrow, including the mangled umbrella, with infuriating slowness, then wheeled it to the garden shed. So be it. He could be as ridiculously stubborn about this as she.
He waited until she locked up, put the key in its hidey-hole, then took her sweet time walking back with her pack on her shoulder. Even from metres away he could see she was shivering, that now the blush had faded, her cheeks were pale and there were dark circles beneath her eyes.
He met her halfway across the lawn. He didn’t think about whether she’d object, just took her chilled wet hand in his. ‘Come on.’ He hustled her up the path to the verandah, pulling away the plastic remains of her poncho as they shuffled under shelter and into the laundry. ‘A hot shower will warm you up. Or a bath. Whichever you prefer.’
‘No. I’ll be all right.’
‘Ellie.’ Concerned now, he shot her a stern look. ‘You’re wet through. You’re going to take that shower if I have to put you under it myself.’ He peeled off his sodden jumper, tossed it on the floor.
Her gaze slid like a hot silk glove down his chest. He was about to make a joke of it all, but something warned him she wouldn’t see the humour right now. She gulped, then lifted panicked eyes to his. ‘I’m all muddy.’
‘That you are. I’ll find you some of Belle’s clothes.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not trailing mud and water all through the house.’
‘Take off your shoes.’ He stepped out of his, removed his socks.
Ellie did the same, then looked up at him. Not looking at that gloriously exposed chest. Oh, why had she thought working in the rain was a good idea? At the time she hadn’t given any thought to the mud factor. Nor had she counted on them wallowing in it. Together. ‘My shoes aren’t the only things covered in mud.’
She regretted those words instantly. She felt the heat in his gaze as it travelled over the rest of her and wondered why her clothes weren’t steaming.
‘Same here.’ If anything, he was in a worse state than her. The entire length of him was iced in shiny brown mud. He unsnapped his sodden jeans.
Ah…‘What are you doing?’
‘Someone has to do something if we’re going to find clean dry clothes,’ he said, being entirely too practical.
It took a moment for him to ease his jeans over his hips and step out of them. Involuntarily—that’s what she told herself—her eyes followed his fingers down the length of his strongly muscled thighs and over his knees to the hairy calves and long knobbly toes as he shucked the denim off.
And, oh…My goodness. Except for a pair of navy boxers which rode low on his lean hips, he was stark-staring naked. She sucked in a breath.
Imagine him naked.
But the perfection of his golden-toned body was even better than her imagination had been able to conjure up. She could smell his skin. Two steps closer and she’d be able to reach out and touch. Another step and she’d be able to taste.
No. If she let him close again, she was going to fall for him; she just knew it. And it would be a much harder landing than that soft mudslide a few moments ago. Safer to keep her distance. And the only way to keep that distance was to not give him any encouragement.
If he’d noticed her indulging in her little fantasy, he didn’t show it. He was all matter of fact and purpose, rescuing his clothes from the floor and dumping them in the laundry trough.
Ellie remained where she was. Did he expect her to follow his lead? She could take off her overalls and still be no more exposed than she would in her bikini…but that wasn’t going to happen. Not with Matt McGregor watching on.
‘Use this,’ he said, handing her a sheet which he pulled from a nearby cupboard. ‘You can slip out of your things and wrap it around you. When you’re ready, meet me in the kitchen.’
Moments later, down to her underwear, and clutching the sheet around her, Ellie followed Matt through a formal lounge and dining room. If she could just keep her sex-starved eyes off his broad-shouldered, near-naked body along the way…She bit back a sigh at the way the light played over the muscles beneath that healthy olive-toned skin and his hairy masculine thighs before making a conscious effort to avert her gaze.
She’d never been upstairs, but as she followed Matt, it was clear Belle paid the same loving attention to detail throughout the grand old house. She passed a pretty feminine bedroom, then a bedroom with a huge four-poster bed and a mountain of maroon quilt. A pair of shiny black men’s shoes were placed neatly on the floor at the foot of the bed.
