The SEAL's Secret Heirs(35)

Obviously she should have thought this through a little better.

Speechless, she stared unashamedly at his bare, rippling torso as he dumped another cupful of water down it. Water streamed along the cut muscles, running in rivulets through the channels to disappear into the fabric of his jeans.

Some of it splashed on her. She was too close. And way too far.

Every ounce of saliva fled from her mouth, and she couldn’t have torn her gaze from his gorgeous body for a million dollars. She’d have paid a million dollars, if she’d had it, to stand in this spot for an eternity.

“Something else you wanted, Ms. Haines?”

She blinked and glanced up into his diamond-hard green eyes, which were currently fastened on her as he glanced over his shoulder. Busted. Again. There was no way to spin this into anything other than it was. “I didn’t know you were washing up. Sorry.”

Casually, he turned and leaned back against the long sink, arms at his side, which left that delicious panorama of naked chest right there on display. “That really didn’t answer my question, now, did it?”

He was turning her brain mushy again, because she surely would have remembered if there had been talking. “Did you ask me a question?”

His soft laugh crawled under her skin. “Well, I’m trying to figure out what it is that you’re after, Grace. Maybe I should ask a different way. Are you here to watch, or join in? Because either is fine with me.”

Her ire rushed back all at once, melding uncomfortably with the heat curling through her midsection at the suggestion. “That’s a fine way to talk after flirting with Ms. Cattle Queen.”

Kyle just raised an eyebrow. “Careful, or a man might start to think you cared whether he flirted with another woman. That’s not the case. Right?”

She crossed her arms, but those diamond-hard eyes drilled through her anyway. “Oh, you’re right. I don’t care.” Loftily, she waved off his question. “It just seems disingenuous to make time with one woman mere minutes before inviting another one to wash up.”

All at once, she had a very clear image of him dumping a cup of water over her chest and licking it off. The heat in her core snaked outward, engulfing her whole body. And that just made her even madder. Kyle was a big flirt who could get Grace hot with merely a glance. It wasn’t fair.

She didn’t remember him affecting her that way before. And she would have. This was all new and exciting and frustrating and scary.

“Maybe.” That slow smile spilled onto his face. “But you’re the one standing here. I’m not offering to wash up with Emma Jane.”

“Yeah. Only because she didn’t have the foresight to follow you.”

“You did.” He watched her without blinking and spread his arms. “Here I am. Whatever are you going to do with me?”

That tripped off a whole chain reaction inside as she thought long and hard about the answer to that question. But she hadn’t followed him for that. Not that she knew for sure he even meant that. But regardless, he had a lot of nerve.

Hands firmly on her hips—just in case they developed a mind of their own and started wandering along the ridges and valleys of that twelve-pack of abs, which she was ashamed to admit she’d counted four times—she glared at him. “This is not you, Kyle. Liam? Yeah. He’s a playboy and a half, but you’ve never been like that, just looking for the next notch in your bedpost.”

There. That was the point she was trying to make.

He laughed with genuine mirth. “Is that what you think this is? Kyle Wade, playboy in training. It has a nice ring. But that ain’t what’s going on.”

“Then by all means. Tell me what’s going on,” she allowed primly.

“Emma Jane is my employee. That’s it.” He sliced the air with his hand. “You, on the other hand, are something else.”

“Oh, yeah? What?”

He swept her with a once-over that should not have been so affecting, but goodness, even the bottoms of her feet heated up. “A woman I’d like to kiss. A lot.”

As in he wanted to kiss her several times or he just wanted to really badly?

She shook her head. Didn’t matter.

“Well, be that as it may.” She tossed her head, scrambling to come up with a response, and poked him in the chest for emphasis. He glanced down at her finger and back up at her, his eyelids shuttered slightly. “You wanted to kiss Emma Jane a minute ago. Pardon me for not getting in line.”

“Grace.” Her name came out so garbled, she hardly recognized it. “I do not want to kiss Emma Jane.”

“Could have fooled me. And her. She definitely had the impression you were into her. Maybe because you were telling her jokes and letting her put her hands all over you.”