CHAPTER 3
What would it be like if one of them touched her? She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
She forced herself to stop. She told herself that she was acting crazy.
She got out of the bath and dried herself off. There was a full-length mirror in the bathroom and she took a moment to check herself out. She liked what she saw.
Her body was toned and tight. Her breasts were firm with no sag. She bounced up and down and watched them follow. She ran her hands down the curves of her body. She was feeling good.
She put her bathrobe on and headed out into her bedroom. Just as she got into her room there was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” she said. Joe stuck his head around the door.
“Hi!” He said, “Just wanted to check that you were OK. You’d been gone a while.”
“Yeah, I’m good thanks. I’d just been having a bath.” “Ah, OK.”
“I guess I need to ask you about the job at some point. What it involves, I mean.”
“Sure, sure. But there’s plenty of time for that, isn’t there?” “I guess so. I mean, you’re the boss, after all.”
“Yes I am,” he said and she noticed that he looked her up and down, slowly. Her bathrobe was slightly open at the top, with just a hint of her chest exposed.
She liked the way that he looked at her. She wished that she could undo the bathrobe a little bit more and give him a little bit more of a glimpse.
“Are you settling in OK?” he asked. “Yeah, I think so. Thanks.”
“You’ll let me know if there’s anything that I can do for you won’t you? Anything at all?”
“Sure, thanks.”
“I want you to feel at home here.”
He stepped closer to her. She looked him in the eye. She felt as though there was some kind of atmosphere in the room suddenly.
She smiled at him and he smiled back at her. He had a crooked half-smile. There was something rogueish about it, something that gave her the impression that anything could happen next.
He had moved even closer. He was standing right in front of her. She had known straight away that he was a confident man, right from the moment when the door had opened and he’d smiled at her. Would he really be so bold to come up and just do… whatever this was? Her heart was racing. It was something about the way that he looked at her, somehow he managed to make her feel light-headed. When she had first arrived she had been too caught up in all of the new things that were taking place. When she had come inside her attention had been split between the two men.
Her eyes had been drawn to Joe, however. More and more during her time downstairs she had looked over at him and caught him watching her with a faint smile on his lips, not saying anything as Max did all the talking. She would smile back and look away – a sign of shyness that was quite uncharacteristic. She hadn’t really had time to think about the effect that he had till now, now that she was caught in his gaze.
She was determined not to come across as shy. She held his gaze, defiant. She had a little smirk on her face.
What he did next knocked the cockiness out of her in a moment, however.
In one smooth, fluid movement he stepped forward, took hold of her waist, pulled her to meet him even as he was stepping closer to her, and kissed her. Her eyes went wide and she raised her arms as though to push him away. But then the feel of his kiss, the feel of his tongue, made her hands drop to her side. She felt weak, but he held onto her. She felt his tongue close to hers, brushing it and she pushed against it. He held her in the small of her
back and she reached up and took hold of his face in her hands. She felt his stubble against her soft hands.
He broke off the kiss and looked at her. She felt her breathing coming faster than before.
“Is this what you want?” he asked softly. She tried to get the words out but she couldn’t. Her mouth was open but no noise came out. She was practically panting. He was looking at her, still waiting for an answer. She started to nod but then decided that there was a better way to convey what she was trying to say. She moved her head toward him and kissed him. That was enough encouragement for him.
He kissed her back. He pushed one hand through her hair and pushed her backward, bending her back as she turned her head up to him.
She became aware of how she was dressed – beneath her bathrobe she was completely naked. The thought excited her. She was so close to being naked. Was that what he wanted? Surely it was. Why else would he be there in her room with her?
Perhaps if she had been with Ben at that moment she would have simply taken it off, let it slip to the floor. She didn’t dare do that here, however. With Ben, she had been the one calling the shots. That was not the case now. The fact that Joe had come up to her room like that, had come to her with so much confidence. She couldn’t compare to that.
So she waited to see what he would do to her next.
In the end, he didn’t do what she had thought he would do – he didn’t immediately undo the bathrobe and expose her naked body.