Page 24 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
It didn’t.
She stared up at the moon. “Seventy-five days ago, this beefcake chose to bang and clang and roar like a beast while I tried to teach a yoga class next door.”
She’d stirred up a well of emotions within him. The pull had almost been too much to resist.
But he couldn’t bloody say that.
He glanced over his shoulder at the press and the disturbed yoga patrons, then lowered his voice. “Babe, who are you talking to?”
Blooming idiot! There he was with the babe again.
She banged her gong. “I’m communing with the universe.”
She’d be communing with a padded cell if he couldn’t calm her down.
He took in the scene.
Cameras flashing and tape rolling, the sports media was lapping up this catastrophe while some of the yoga crew held out their phones, documenting the melee.
She poked him with the mallet. “And don’t you dare call me babe, baby, or babykins.”
“Babykins? What the bloody hell is that?” he shot back.
Confusion marred her features. “I don’t know. But I ban you from calling me those names. And sugar plum. It’s off the list, too,” she added with a huff.
The list?
On second thought, maybe a padded cell was exactly what Libby Lamb needed.
“I can’t call you sugar plum either?” he pressed. “Isn’t that a fairy? Yeah, there’s a sugar plum fairy. It’s from the Nutcracker. Do you have a thing against fairies, or are you just nuts? You’re dressed like you fancy Christmas, though. You’d have to take away the bird shit on your shoulder, of course, unless getting crapped on by birds is something you’re into.”
She gasped. “I have nothing against fairies, nuts, or Christmas. Nor do I have any weird bird fetishes. I chose this outfit strategically to harness the spiritual power of color, and nuts are an excellent source of fiber, fat, and protein. And everyone loves fairies. It’s a given fact.”
“Can’t argue with that,” he said under his breath, hardly able to believe they’d shifted the conversation to winter holiday nut fairies covered in bird shit. Still, it was better than having her bang that gong and scream at the moon.
She shook her head as if she were trying to rid her brain of the crazy her mouth was spewing. “Forget the fairy nuts. You don’t get to call me anything.”
He reared back. “Fairy nuts?” Now there was something nobody wanted to picture in their heads.
“You know what I mean,” she hissed.
He crossed his arms. “That’s not exactly fair, though, is it?”
“What do you mean?” she barked, not backing down.
“You’re telling me I can’t give you a pet name while you’ve called me beefcake more than a few times?”
Beefcake.
It was a ludicrous word, a slight for sure, but something was amusing about her lobbing the two syllables at him. Something that got his heart pumping and his cock…
Dammit! Did it turn him on?
She lifted her chin. “You deserve to be called a beefcake after what you took from me.”
He threw up his hands, frustration mixing with the completely inappropriate arousal coursing through his body. “I barely know you, Libby. What could I take from you?”
“My O,” she seethed.
