One Night, So Pregnant!(27)

Nate.

Tess recognised him instantly, even though she’d never seen him with so few clothes on before. The broad shoulders, the imposing height, the lean waist and long legs were unmistakeable. As were the swift, controlled and economical movements as he leaned over to grab a towel draped across one of the marble water nymphs at the edge of the pool.

Despite the tremble of reaction and the trickle of sweat pooling between her breasts, Tess couldn’t drag her gaze away from him.

The short black trunks he wore clung to muscular thighs but did nothing to disguise the display of bunching muscles and flexing sinews as he rubbed the towel over his head. Having made his short hair stick up in spikes, he concentrated on working the towel in efficient strokes down his arms and over his bare chest—and Tess’s knees began to shake. The low hum of desire turned into the insistent punch of red-hot lust.

I’m toast!

Nate Graystone had the most magnificent body she’d ever seen. His gloriously masculine physique more perfectly formed than the Sea God lounging on the central plinth. And to think he’d been hiding all that under a business suit.

She cleared her throat, struggling to draw an even breath, and Nate’s head came up. He straightened, and faced her, as his gaze locked on hers.

Tess’s lungs seized to a halt, the heat flaring in her abdomen and shooting up to make her nipples thrust into hard aching peaks against her T-shirt as she took in the full glory of him. And two errant thoughts flashed through her mind at the exact same moment. Despite having made a baby with this man, she had never seen him completely naked... And she really, really wanted to.

Her gaze edged down, inexorably drawn towards the clinging black trunks and the impressive bulge beneath—and the place between her thighs went molten.

Her pulse pummelled her eardrums, drowning out the distant roar of the surf, the hungry cry of a seagull and the whispered words of caution. Her heart wasn’t just beating double time now, it was about to explode right out of her chest. She rubbed the heel of her hand between her breasts, trying to kickstart her lungs before she died from the adrenaline rush, as he slung the towel around his neck and strolled towards her.

With each step he took, every pulse point in her body pounded harder and faster. And suddenly the decision she’d made not to sleep with him again seemed a lot less doable.

‘Hello, Tess, so you finally made it,’ came a gruff voice from a million miles away as he drew level, the hint of censure in his tone not nearly as disturbing as the way his voice seemed to rake over her sensitised skin like sandpaper. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t out front to meet you. But you were late and it’s hot, so I took a swim.’

‘No problem,’ she croaked.

Except that I’m about to swallow my own tongue if you don’t put some clothes on.

She coughed, struggling not to fixate on the fascinating happy trail of hair that bisected an iron-hard six-pack and disappeared beneath the low-slung waistband of those damn trunks. She forced her eyes to his face. Surely there ought to be a law against a man with that much heft wearing stretch fabric.

The low hum built in her throat as she tried to think of something sensible to say, while she was in the early stages of a cardiac arrest.

Then the Greek god looked past her shoulder, cursed sharply and murmured: ‘Please tell me you didn’t take Highway One in that heap of junk?’

She glanced back at her car, concentrating on the sting of irritation in the hope that it would douse the firestorm of lust. Why did that tone always manage to make her feel as if she were fourteen years old again and sitting in her father’s study waiting to be chastised for her latest misdemeanor?

‘That heap of junk got me here just fine,’ she said with only a minor hint of breathlessness.

‘It got you here an hour late,’ he replied, wiping his face with the end of the towel.

‘Shh,’ she hissed. ‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Why?’

‘She might hear you.’

‘Who?’

‘Jezebel my jalopy, of course,’ she said, hoping to deflect the caustic tone with humour. Just because he had a point about her car, she did not want to argue about it. The last thing she needed to do right now was generate more heat between them. ‘She’s sensitive.’

His lips tilted. ‘The car’s a girl. That figures.’

The heat level shot up another few thousand degrees, and Tess decided that making him smile hadn’t been the smartest idea. His eyes drifted over her face for a moment that felt like a millennium.

‘Follow the road past the house,’ he said at last, his voice rough but businesslike. ‘The cottage is past the cypress grove on your left. I’ll meet you down there. I need to change.’