“Someone, please, tell me what to do about this girl,” Wells muttered, banging a little too loud on her door. “It’s me.”
After a beat, she answered. “Who is me?”
A vein throbbed in his forehead. “The only man you should be expecting,” he shouted.
“Relax.” She laughed, opening the door, skin looking quite flushed. Interesting. What had she been up to before he knocked? Oh, he had some idea. “I know golfers are weirdly territorial about their caddies, but you’ve really made it an art form.”
Wells couldn’t do anything but stare at the freshly scrubbed and shiny being standing in front of him. In bare feet and a bathrobe. He had a picture on his phone of this woman in nothing but a cropped mesh tank top. He’d sent her a picture of his ass. Were they just going to pretend that wasn’t true? Wells didn’t know. He knew only that, by some phenomenon, she looked equally incredible in the robe as she did half naked. “Uh . . . what?”
She shook her head at him. “Never mind. Are you going to come in?”
He held up his phone and pointed at it. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“My ass selfie, belle,” he exploded. “You didn’t send back a single fire emoji. Are your thumbs broken?”
“I was . . .” She flapped her hands around. “I didn’t know how to respond.”
“You tell me it’s a great freaking ass, that’s how you respond!”
“You already know it’s great!”
“I want to hear it from you!”
“Fine. Fine! It’s firm and bitable and distracting. It’s the kind of butt that probably makes other dudes too self-conscious to shower near you at the gym, because it puts all the other man butts to shame. If there was a harness on your back, your booty could be used as a seat on a roller coaster. Someone should whip it, honestly. It’s an ass-whipping ass.”
He immediately regretted asking for a response. Or maybe the problem was that he didn’t regret it at all and would be thinking about her biting into his butt cheek like an apple for the rest of his life. “Better.” He coughed. “You’re in a robe, Josephine.” Lord, he sounded like he’d been wandering in the desert for a week. “Do you want to put something on?”
Briefly, she looked down, then back up at him with an arched brow. “You’ve seen me in less now, haven’t you?” she said dryly. “But let me know if you’re going to succumb to the vapors. I’ll ring the front desk for smelling salts.”
With that, she let the door close, giving Wells no choice but to catch it and step inside, shutting it behind him. He’d made a mistake coming here. The room was fragrant from her bath, flowers and soap scenting the air. She’d turned on just a single lamp, lending a heavy intimacy to the room. Mood lighting that could only be termed as dangerous.
“Actually, I was going to get dressed and go to your room,” Josephine said, taking a seat on the couch and tucking her feet beneath her. “You saved me a trip.”
He hesitated at the end of the couch. “Why were you coming to my room?”
God man, try to sound a little less horny.
Easier said than done. He couldn’t stop wondering what, if anything, she was wearing beneath that fluffy white robe. And how warm her skin would still be from the bath.
Did hot water make her limber?
Enough, asshole.
Something might very well be happening here, between them. Not that he had any idea what it was. But their positions as employee and employer made the tightrope they were walking on very thin, so he needed to navigate it carefully, for her sake.
“Well.” She shifted her position, tucking a section of wet hair behind her ear. “What I was going to say . . . it seemed like a good idea when I was in the bath. But now that you’re standing here in front of me looking like you just woke up from a forty-year coma and found out cars can fly . . . I’m second-guessing myself.”
“Fuck. Sorry.” Wells dragged a hand down his face. She had no idea how embarrassingly apt a description that was. He sat down on the opposite end of the couch. “Guess I’m still a little shell-shocked after that round today.”
Her eyes twinkled. “I knew you had it in you.”
“What did you want to talk to me about?” he said in a rush. It was that or kiss her.
“Okay. Okay.” She folded her hands in her lap. Took a breath.
Oh, this was important.
Wells turned to face her a little more.