“We pretty much work out at the arena,” Marc said. “But I’m sure there’s somewhere nearby.”

“I don’t want some girly place. I want to watch ripped guys lift weights.”

Marc choked and Duncan laughed.

“I’m kidding,” she said. “I also need to find a yoga studio.”

“Looked like you were doing okay here,” Marc pointed out.

“Yeah, I can do it on my own. But I need to meet people, remember?”

“Nobody’d ever mistake you for an introvert,” Duncan muttered.

This was true.

“We’ll do the dishes,” Marc said, after they finished off the bottle of Merlot. “You cooked, you don’t have to clean up.”

She gave him a long look, a flutter of her eyelashes that made his heart trip, then said demurely, “Thank you.”

What was that look for?

“Speak for yourself, man,” Duncan said. “I’m going out.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“Got a date,” Duncan muttered.

“Oh, Duncan! A date! With a girl?” Lovey blinked at him.

“Shut the fuck up.”

She grinned.

“You have time to help,” Marc said. “Get off your ass.”

“Fine.”

“Thanks, guys. I appreciate you cleaning up. I think I’ll go have a bubble bath,” Lovey announced. Marc closed his eyes and repressed a groan at images of her naked body submerged in frothy bubbles…Jesus. He started banging dirty pots into the sink.

Chapter 12

Lovey piled her hair up on her head with a clip and slid into the hot water. It closed around her in a warm, comforting embrace, steam scented with her favorite bath salts rising around her. Ah. Bliss.

With her tablet safely in a Ziploc bag, she read for a while, letting the hot water coax tension out of her muscles. Well, she tried to read. Her thoughts kept drifting away to Marc and the conversation they’d shared today.

Marissa. That was her name. Bitch. She wanted a fucking horse-drawn carriage ride? Not that that wasn’t nice. An over-the-top romantic gesture was lovely once in a while, but seriously? Breaking up with a guy because of that?

Clearly there was more to it than that. She’d caught the thoughtful look on Marc’s face. Had he been beating himself up about not being romantic enough?

True, he was pretty practical and serious. But that didn’t mean he had no romance in him.

Oh, how the hell would she know that? Why was she defending him in her mind? She shook her head and tried to focus on the romance novel she was trying to read.

A romantic gesture could just as easily be offering to clean up and do the dishes after she’d cooked a big meal. She sighed, distracted yet again.

Except there were no romantic feelings between them, so his gesture had just been thoughtful. Not romantic.

Gah.

She gave up on the book and washed with a sugar scrub to exfoliate, used a pumice stone on her feet, and shaved her legs. Finally she climbed out of the tub, dried off, and massaged body lotion into her skin in the same scent as the bath salts, her usual Cupcake line of body products, now one of her advertisers on her blog. She took a moment to massage moisturizer onto her face, then wrapped a towel around herself and headed back to her bedroom to change for bed.

She had barely opened the top drawer of her dresser to pull out her pajamas when she heard Marc yell. “Tabarnak de câlisse!”

Whoa, that didn’t sound good. She dropped the towel while she dug through her drawer, then straightened and stared at the door. Was he okay? She grabbed the towel and tried to get it over her naked body before she yanked the door open. Marc stood there, mouth agape.

“What’s wrong?” she demanded. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay! Are you okay? What the fuck happened in there? It looks like a goddamn crime scene!”

She blinked and padded after him to the bathroom, only now noticing the trail of bloody marks on the floor. The bath mat had more blood, with some on the tile floor as well.

“Oh, fuck me running,” Marc groaned. He covered his eyes with one hand. “Are you having…oh Jesus.”

“No! I must have cut myself shaving!” she cried. She looked down at her legs. The towel slipped over her breasts as she twisted one knee forward, then the other, to look for the cut. There it was on the back of her right ankle, trailing bright red blood down to her heel. “See? It’s just a little nick.”

“Christ,” he said, relief in his tone. “But still…Jesus, Lovey. That’s a lot of blood!”

“It’s not that much. I’ll clean it up. Sorry, sorry.”

“It’s not the mess I’m worried about.”

“I’m fine. I didn’t even feel it. I’ll just put a Band-Aid on it.” She rushed to open the medicine cabinet. She’d seen bandages in there. Yes. In her reflection in the mirror, she saw the towel gaping low over her breasts, one nipple showing. “Gah!” She dropped the box of bandages and grabbed the towel. The bandages all spilled out into the sink. She glanced at Marc. His face was flushed, his eyes glittering. She sighed. Yep, he’d seen it all.

“Let me do it.” He reached for the bandages. “You hold the towel. Sit on the toilet.” He picked up one paper-wrapped bandage, opened it, and peeled off the two pieces of plastic.

She sat. She grabbed some toilet paper, balled it up, and handed it to him to run under water. He crouched before her and lifted her ankle. His hands looked so big and strong on her leg, which thankfully was smooth—albeit bloody. Oh yeah, that was attractive. What a loser she was.

He set her foot on the denim of his bent knee. As his gaze shifted upward, she became excruciatingly aware that with one foot propped on his knee, her thighs were now parted and the towel wasn’t covering much of them. She sucked briefly on her bottom lip as heat washed down through her, thinking about what he could see there. Probably not much…but he’d looked.

Now the air around them buzzed with tension and her insides went hot and soft.

He turned his attention back to her ankle. Gently, he swabbed the drying blood off her skin, then applied the bandage with tight pressure.

“There. That should stop it.” He still held her foot, the fingers of one hand applying pressure to the bandage, the fingers of his other hand rubbing over her instep, then the back of her calf. Up and down, in slow, mesmerizing strokes. Tingles spread all up her leg and converged in her pussy. Her heart fluttered. She swallowed, watching him touch her. He looked up at her and their eyes met.

She wasn’t going to beg him, but she didn’t hide from him that she wanted him. “Where’s Duncan?”

“He went out.” His voice was low and rough.

She nodded. Their eyes still held, both knowing what that meant. Heat built between them as they eyed each other. His hand still stroked her calf, cupping it in his palm. She’d been rejected once before so she hesitated to make the first move, but then she couldn’t help it, she was so drawn to him, overcome by hot lust, and she slid off the toilet and onto his lap. Only he might have pulled her off the toilet and onto his lap as he sat on the floor, because his arms wrapped around her right away and then they were kissing, their mouths homing in on each other with desperate precision. So she wasn’t really sure who made the first move, but that didn’t matter because his mouth was on hers, hard and hot and greedy.

She made a moany sound in her throat, slid her fingers into his short, thick hair, and kissed him back, hungry for the taste of him, her body desperate to feel his up against her. The towel forgotten, she let him squeeze her against his chest. His erection pressed against her hip.

She liked that. He was hard because of her. She more than liked that, she freakin’ loved that.