Chapter 4 #3
Rose shot him a quick look. “Like last night, bullying you into wearing the jacket and top hat, even though you clearly didn’t want to. She’s always done things like that with our friends and people we want to impress. I can’t tell you how many times I was embarrassed growing up.”
James was almost smiling now, his eyes resting on her face. “Which am I?”
“Which are you, what?”
“Which am I? A friend or someone you want to impress?”
“Oh.” Rose dropped her eyes. “I don’t know. I didn’t mean you.”
James chuckled softly and reached up to brush back the fall of her hair, which she’d been hiding her face behind. “You’d be terrible at poker.” Despite the words, his tone was soft, almost affectionate.
She sucked in a breath and met his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you can never hide what you’re feeling.”
She hoped—desperately hoped—that wasn’t true. “I certainly can,” she said, a little sharply. “I’ve felt all kinds of things that you have no idea about.”
“Is that right?” He was smiling again, pushing her hair back again since it had fallen forward into her face once more. “What kinds of things have you been feeling all this time?”
Her heart was racing now, and she couldn’t seem to take a full breath. He’d never acted like this with her before, but that didn’t mean that it was serious, that it meant something.
He was in a strange mood, and people did a lot of things they didn’t mean when they were in strange moods.
“That’s none of your business. All I meant was that you can’t possibly know everything I feel just by my face. I don’t give away everything.”
“You give away a lot. Either you blush, or you lower your eyes, or you let a little dimple right here show.” His finger brushed the side of her mouth, very softly, making little shivers of pleasure run up and down Rose’s spine. “Your face is very easy to read.”
“I don’t think it’s as easy as you think,” she insisted. “For instance, what do you think I’m feeling right now?”
“I think you’re self-conscious that I’ve seen through you so easily.”
“See, you’re wrong! That’s not what I’m feeling.” She gave him a cold glare. “I actually want to shake that smug smile off your face.”
She couldn’t believe she’d actually said those words out loud, even half-teasing as she was. She held her breath until James burst into warm laughter, dropping his hand back beside him on the cushion.
“I guess you told me,” he said, reaching to turn the television to a cable news channel.
Rose leaned back to watch the news too since she was too keyed up right now to sleep. “I guess I did.”
He was still smiling, even as he focused on the television, and Rose was intently aware that she was still smiling too.
Rose stayed downstairs watching the news for a long time. Too long.
She kept telling herself she’d go upstairs at the next commercial break, but she never did. James didn’t leave either, so she kept thinking she didn’t want to be rude and leave before he was ready.
The truth was she just didn’t want to leave him—at all.
So she ended up staying far too long. She knew it was too long because she fell asleep on the couch.
She wasn’t aware of falling asleep, of course. Not until she started to wake up.
When she woke up, her cheek was pressed against James’s shirt.
She blinked, trying to make her mind work, and she shifted slightly, wondering what the big hard hot thing against her was.
It was James’s body, and the heavy thing around her was his arm.
She’d fallen asleep on top of him.
She tried to pull back, but his arm resisted the move, and he made a few wordless mutters. That was when she realized he was asleep as well.
One of her hands was pressed against his chest, and she instinctively moved it down, feeling the firm line of his belly and loving the feel of it.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt a man like this. Maybe never.
She was warm and content and incredibly comfortable, and she didn’t want to move. But she really needed to. It would be brutally embarrassing if he were to wake up and discover he was sleeping with his nanny.
She tried again to pull back, and this time his arm shifted. He mumbled again, but his eyes were closed when she sat up enough to look at him.
With his eyes closed, he looked relaxed and far younger than he normally looked. He desperately needed to shave, and his dress shirt was hopelessly wrinkled.
Her eyes dropped down even lower, and she saw something there. There was a definite bulge in the front of his trousers.
She smothered a gasp and stood up, straightening her clothes and walking out of the room quickly, leaving James sleeping on the couch.
The erection obviously didn’t mean anything, except he was a man who was still in the prime of life.
But it made Rose think about sex. About sex and James together, in the same breath.
And that was something she absolutely couldn’t do, not if she wanted to hold on to any vestige of professionalism.
She wondered if he found her attractive. He’d called her pretty last night, but he might have just been trying to be nice.
It would be nice if her body could arouse him though—because his body could sure arouse her.