He didn’t even remember standing up, but suddenly, she was in his arms, her blue toes probably a good few inches off the ground. His blood raced in so many directions he felt dizzy. Among all the mental chaos, one thought occurred to him over and over again. If this incredible human being was willing to share something so important with him, he had to be worth a damn, right? He had to be worth salvaging.
“For the record, you didn’t have to preface anything,” Wells said against her forehead. “If you want something from me, ask, Josephine. You’ve got a standing yes.”
She looked up at him and blinked a few times, as if surprised, before recovering. “I’ll remind you of that tomorrow when you want to use a hybrid when we clearly should be using your five iron.”
That mouth was inches away. Inches. “You bring this up during our bonding session?”
“Session adjourned,” she murmured, her eyelids growing suspiciously heavy.
They couldn’t have been any more obvious about staring at each other’s mouths. He saw the pulse fluttering at the base of her neck. “Is it, belle?”
“Well, um.” She wet her lips and his balls started to throb like a son of a bitch. “I was going to watch a movie if you want to hang out f-for a while.”
I shouldn’t. “Yeah. I’ll stay awhile.”
Wells didn’t realize he still had Josephine locked in an embrace until she wiggled free, dropping down to the couch. When she reached for the remote on the coffee table and turned on the television, he noticed her fingers trembled slightly. Hell, so were his own. Sitting down with Josephine—in a robe—was a ten on the Richter scale of bad ideas. But there he went, taking a spot close enough to her that the cushion dipped, bringing her up against his side and allowing him to put an arm around her shoulder.
“Josephine.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
He held on to his willpower. “If you want me to leave, just say the word.”
Her chest rose and fell, glassy eyes trained on the television. “It’s just a movie, Wells.”
He swallowed a pained laugh.
It’s just a movie. Right.
And Josephine was just his caddie.
Chapter Sixteen
Josephine probably shouldn’t have put on the movie 300.
Going in, it seemed like a happy medium.
Action for Wells. Shirtless Spartans for her.
Right?
But she had forgotten about the scene. The sex scene. When King Leonidas is leaving for battle and makes very passionate love to his wife beforehand. An unbridled, slow-motion masterpiece that, frankly, she might have rewound a few times if she were alone. But she wasn’t alone—and the atmosphere surrounding her and Wells was growing more charged by the second.
What was going on here?
Sure, they’d had their fair share of chemically confusing moments, where his closeness made her blood pressure spike and curled her toes in her shoes—the man was certifiably gorgeous. Sure, she’d stared at the incendiary picture of his hard-packed backside until her hormones had forced her fingers down the front of her panties. Before she knew it, said panties had come off completely. She might have been in the process of masturbating to a picture of her boss when he’d knocked on the door. Acting natural had been a challenge on par with pole vaulting with a piece of asparagus.
They’d settled into what could actually be a successful partnership. Some mild flirting, fine, but overall a respectful working relationship. More than she could have hoped for, actually! But sitting beside him on a couch in the near-dark hotel suite—tucked up against his well-muscled side like they were on a date—while watching Leonidas put it down on his old lady was making pulses pound in places they had no business pounding.
Good lord. Don’t think about pounding.
Was she making a bigger deal out of this than it was? Golfers and caddies tended to bond, didn’t they? Many of them were best friends or even family, because of the trust factor being so important. Perhaps . . . they’d simply gotten closer, she and Wells. This was what they did now. They snuggled up and watched movies like a couple of ol’ pals.
Merely hoping to confirm that plausible theory, Josephine snuck a quick glance up at Wells’s face and found his expression strained, his gaze trained on her face instead of the movie.
Oh boy. Okay. Not just pals.
“I’ve been thinking,” he started, in a low rumble that she could feel deep in her belly. “We’re pretty good at this flirting thing, right?”
The temperature of her skin rose, face to fingertips. “Actually, I feel like I’m kind of bumbling my way through it.”