Page 125 of The Nanny and the Hothead
“Yeah, woo away,” she beamed.
Stupid sounding word or not, it was woo time!
He surveyed the kitchen, entirely at a loss. It was woo time, and he had no woo plan.
“I’m a little out of practice—with the wooing,” he confessed.
She glanced at Oscar’s half-filled glass of milk still on the table, then snapped her fingers. “You and Oscar already had dessert. But I haven’t. What about that! We could have a dessert date since I missed it.”
Dessert was an excellent suggestion. It had to be one of the wooing cornerstones. And thank God she was firing on all cylinders. This woo business had him grasping at woo straws.
He had to stop thinking and saying all the woo words!
He dusted off his hands. “Dessert it is.” Bolting from his seat, the chair skidded across the floor as he sprinted past the island to the freezer. He plucked a popsicle from the shelf, bounded back to the table, then presented her with the frozen treat like a freaking Labrador fetching a stick.
He needed to up his wooing game—and fast!Woo up? Woo-it to the max?Damn that stupid word! Except when he looked at her, his wooing reservations disappeared. She gazed at him like he could do no wrong. For Christ’s sake, he was an award-winning chef. He was capable of whipping up a perfect soufflé or an intricate tartlet. And what had he given her? A popsicle—and yet, she smiled at him as if he’d handed her the world.
She tore off the paper covering and set it aside next to Oscar’s leftover milk. “I got a cherry-flavored one,” she said, then—holy hell—she brought the frozen dessert to her mouth, parted her lips, then slid the tip inside. “It’s super sweet,” she added, then moaned as she sampled the icy treat.
He opened his mouth, thinking words would come out. He needed to get on upping his woo game. But Charlotte plus a popsicle had rendered him incapable of basic speech.
She licked the shaft. Was that what it was called? Did popsicles have shafts like—
“Mitch, are you okay?” she asked, breaking through his popsicle anatomy predicament.
In his defense, he’d just observed the sexiest woman on the planet suck on the tip of a popsicle. It sure seemed like it happened in slow-motion. And sweet Jesus, he may never recover.
“You’re not having one?” she asked, bringing the cock-shaped delight back to her lips.
Did he want to woo her or give himself an exploding erection?
It appeared both events could coincide.
She slid the top of the popsicle across her lips, then licked the cherry-sweet substance. “I feel bad eating this in front of you. You should have one with me,” she suggested.
And look at her—talking and using words properly.
“Right. Me. Popsicle. Eat,” he replied like a caveman—a caveman with a raging hard-on. He flung his arms as he turned to head to the freezer. With the grace of a bull in a china shop, he knocked over Oscar’s glass of milk. Charlotte sprang to her feet. She dropped her popsicle as she gathered her laptop and camera, saving them from the liquid splattered across the table. It doused his shirt, startling him with a cold milky blast.
“Shit!” he hissed, setting the cup upright before peeling off his saturated T-shirt. He scanned the table, making sure the liquid hadn’t ruined the camera or the laptop. Then he used his shirt to mop up the mess. “I’m sorry about that,” he said, but she didn’t reply. She stared at him slack-jawed, her eyes positively devouring his torso.
“The milk,” he grunted, holding up his shirt and clearly still in caveman-with-a hard-on mode.
“Uh-huh,” she uttered, joining him in Caveman-landia. She pointed to his chest. “Tattoos?”
He studied his exposed skin. “I got them when I was younger. It’s a chef thing.”
“Uh-huh,” she repeated, her gaze raking over him. “They’re on your body.”
He nodded. “That’s usually where they put them.”
Was this conversation bordering on insanity, or had they both lost their damn minds?
“About the wooing…” he continued.
Wide-eyed, she shook her head. “Yes, I’ve been sufficiently wooed.”
“You have?” He peered at the partially eaten popsicle, currently melting into a red pool on his kitchen floor. “I didn’t know if there was a threshold for it—for the wooing, a woo factor.”
