Page 87 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
He’d gambled and was right. She’d been hurt badly. Was he a bastard for coming at her weakest point? Yes, but that’s what he did in the ring, and that’s what he’d have to do if he had any chance of getting out of this damn funk and getting her out of his head.
Now it was time to go in for the knockout.
He cupped her face in his hands. “You’re worse, Libby Lamb, because you hide your pain behind a mask of serenity. My pain and aggression are out there for everyone to see. You pretend like yours doesn’t exist.”
Her lips parted, and she stared up at him, those pools of amber threatening to swallow him whole. The raw honesty in her gaze cut right to his heart. The fight to hold himself back from her weakened. His defenses shattered. He’d started this tête à tête with his gloves up. Now, completely exposed, his hands were at his bloody sides.
They were back to this place—a place where he knew better than to lose himself, but he couldn’t gather the resolve to pull away. The energy, the force propelling them toward each other, was too powerful. She gripped his shirt with both hands, holding on to him. Had she done it to stop herself from using her free fist to clock him in the chin for mouthing off like a bloody prick? It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it. Or had she done it to anchor herself to him?
That was it.
Deep within, he knew this to be true, but it didn’t change the fact that he couldn’t have her. He should take her hands and remove them from where they rested against his chest, but that blasted violet-blue haze was back, clouding his vision, muddling his thoughts. No, that wasn’t it. What he’d tried to peg as confusion wasn’t confusion at all.
It was clarity.
A terrifying clarity.
He wanted her. He wanted her like he’d wanted…
“Raz, you’re right, I…” she whispered, but he couldn’t allow her to go on.
He drew his thumb across her bottom lip, and she trembled at his touch. His arrogant exterior was no match for her words—words that resonated with such searing honesty that he had no other option than to make it stop. There, in an unfamiliar room, in an unfamiliar town, time stood still, and every reason to turn away from Libby’s light disappeared. In a desperate move to quell the ache in his chest, he crushed his lips to hers, silencing her with a kiss that calmed and shattered him all at once.
And he was home, bloody home. He teetered on a precipice, playing with fire, gambling with his heart. He knew better, but he couldn’t stop.
Libby parted her lips, and he deepened their connection. His mind emptied of all rational thought as an overpowering sensation took over.
Don’t stop kissing Libby Lamb.
Hot, sweet, and wet, she tasted like the forbidden fruit, and he wanted to make her juices flow.
She sighed a sexy sound—a sound that went straight to his cock. He slid his hands into her hair, wrecking her ponytail as he twisted the silky locks between his fingers. This earned him another lusty sigh from the raven-haired beauty. Each kiss fueled his desire. He’d fought his feelings so viciously these past ten days that the relief of giving in felt more like a victory than a defeat. She skimmed her hands beneath his shirt, and he inhaled a tight breath as she explored the expanse of his muscled torso. Her tender touch was almost unbearable. It gutted him while making him want more of her, all of her.
“You taste so sweet, plum,” he whispered against her lips before dropping a kiss to the corner of her mouth. She smiled a honeyed smile against him, humming her delight. Sweeter than a summer day, she’d cast a spell on him. His mind stopped spinning. His nagging thoughts drifted into the distant corners of his mind. The second-guessing dissolved as he trailed his fingertips down the petal-soft skin of her neck, past her shoulders, and settled his grip on her hips. Lifting her into his arms, he turned swiftly and pressed her back into the door as she wrapped her legs around him. Fused together, they released a collective sigh laced with relief and desperate longing. He gripped her supple arse and his palms melded around the perfect globes. They moved together as if one completed the other—two halves becoming a whole.
She held his face in her hands, and her thumb brushed against his earlobe. He’d never bloody thought about his damn earlobes until now. But he’d give up every penny he’d earned to lock that feeling in a bottle.
Kiss after kiss, the energy flowed between them, rhythmic and harmonious. She rocked her hips, grinding into him, teasing his hard length. A frenzied friction kindled between them. He was so much bigger than her. She wasn’t wrong with the beefcake moniker, but they met as equals when their bodies came together.
Spiraling deeper and deeper, he ran his tongue across the seam of her lips when a squeak and a faint rattle nudged his consciousness. He blocked it out, then slid his hand inside her shirt. Massaging her breasts through the lace of her bra, he drew his tongue down her jawline. Tasking himself with tasting every exposed inch of skin, he kissed her neck, licking and sucking the sweet skin—claiming her.
She bucked against him, gasping as they fell into a rhythm that had them breathing hard. He was on the edge, ready to shrug out of his trousers and rip her leggings off. Every impulse screamed for him to thrust inside her, rocking and bucking until he couldn’t see straight. He shifted her weight to his left hand, ready to use his right to free his weeping cock, when that bloody squeak and rattle returned. It had to be the old Victorian, but that assertion vanished when a sharp knock cut through the sensual blue-violet haze.
Libby went rigid in his arms, and they stared at each other. She bit down on her kiss-swollen bottom lip as they remained stock-still. Limbs entwined and chests heaving, they listened.
“Are you in there with my dad, Libby? Are you doing noisy yoga? Is noisy yoga a thing, or are you doing punching yoga? You sure are making a lot of sounds in there.”
Sebastian.
Bollocks.
Libby’s eyes went wide as the color drained from her cheeks. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she was able to form a sentence. “Yes, I’m in here with your father doing him.” She shook her head. “We’re doing a special boxing yoga. We’re doing this because I’m his spiritual advisor, and that’s part of my job. Advising him spiritually with my body and doing it noisily.”
She winced.
Yeah, that was about as cringe-worthy of a reply as one could muster—but at least she could talk. All he could do was stand there rocking a giant boner.
“That’s what I told the people outside that I thought you were doing.” The doorknob rattled as Sebastian turned it from the other side. “Is the door broken? I can’t get it to budge.”
