Page 114 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
Is that all he had?
Was that a challenge?
He barked an arrogant laugh and did what he seemed to do best, morph into beefcake mode.
Was it a jerk move?
Absolutely.
But who did she think he was, some couch potato? Some weekend gym warrior? He was bloody Erasmus Cress—a professional athlete, a heavyweight champion.
He was no knobby slowpoke wanker.
A surge of jealousy laced with a confusing sense of betrayal worked its way into his bloodstream. Anger permeated his every heated breath. Who was he mad at? Himself? Libby? Dougie, the yoga wanker?
Yeah, it had to be the yoga wanker.
Hardening his expression, he kicked up his speed and matched Libby’s pace as they sliced by a wall of fluttering aspen trees, dancing in the pouring rain.
They passed one of those stacks of rocks, indicating they were on the main trail, and she glanced at him. “I can feel beefcake waves coming off of you.”
“Are you sure it’s not you, plum? You might be hot and bothered over your yoga-loving Zen Dougie?” he fired back, giving her the full beefcake treatment.
“What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t seem to mindDougiehitting on you?” he bit out, and bloody hell, Libby Lamb kicked up her speed. Forget the notion of her having trouble keeping up with him. This woman could run like the wind.
“That’s why you’ve been acting like a giant jerk? You’re mad about Doug inviting me to meditate with him?”
She was no idiot. She had to have known what the wanker was doing.
“He wasn’t talking about meditating, and you know it. Even Sebastian picked up on the guy’s sleazeball factor,” he replied between tight breaths.
They passed another stack of rocks that accompanied a slew of hoof prints.
They were in donkey hot pursuit—but the pursuit had nothing on the crackle of agitated energy ping-ponging between them.
“You could show a little gratitude,” she replied as another bolt of lightning punctuated the sky.
“For Zen Dougie? You want me to be grateful for that twit!” he exclaimed.
“He helped you get Beefcake out of the trailer,” she shot back, barely winded. Maybe there was something to her Pun-chi yoga regimen. She had killer endurance and an amazing body. She was a beast wrapped in tiny yoga pants that hugged her in all the right places.
Don’t imagine her perfect backside in those leggings.
He focused his agitation on the Zen cowboy. “I didn’t ask that wanker, Dougie, for any help. I was doing fine on my own,” he lobbed back as they side-stepped, left, right, left, down a steep incline.
“Zen Dougie’s arrival doesn’t account for why you couldn’t show a speck of interest in your son’s excitement to care for the donkeys.”
There they go. With that remark, she’d opened the flood gates.
“Are you bloody joking?”
“No, he was so excited about the burros, and you just stood there, rebuffing his enthusiasm.”
Did she have a point? Had he been acting like a sullen git?
Perhaps.
