The Best Next Thing

A lone sock.

His eyes dropped to her feet, looking for his larcenous dog, but she was nowhere to be seen.

Charity seemed to know exactly who he was looking for. “She passed out on my sofa.”

His gaze travelled back to her face, noting that she had changed into her horrid Mrs. Cole uniform, and he bit back a growl of frustration. Desperate to tear the hideous clothes off her.

His hands fisted at his sides and he fought the impulse to say something about it.

“I-I’ll just put this…” She ventured into his room, her movements slow and tentative. A few tiny steps took her to the bed.

“You said that you usually wait until I take Stormy for her walk before bringing the loot back.” He recalled, and she froze in the act of replacing the sock beside its mate. Her hand tightened fractionally around the tube, but she kept her gaze averted while her flush deepened.

“I thought you would need…”

“Why are you really here?” he interrupted her, his voice hoarse with suppressed desire. He wanted her to admit that this was a ruse, that she had known he would be in the shower, that she had hoped to catch him in nothing but a towel…Jesus, he wanted her to admit it so damned badly. Because then they could finally do something about this growing sexual tension between them.

She licked her lips, and he shuddered at the sight of that pink tongue, gooseflesh breaking out on his wet, naked skin. His dick responded, tenting the towel knotted around his waist.

She appeared to be aware of the movement beneath the towel, and her eyes darted down nervously before leaping back up to remain fixed on his Adam’s apple. The outstretched hand still clutching the sock began to tremble violently.

“Do you want to touch me, Charity?” he asked in a barely audible whisper, and she swallowed, the click of her throat as loud as a gunshot in the quiet room.

Her gaze met his: large, liquid, and filled with longing.

Her head moved. A barely perceptible nod.

“Say it, please.” He could hear the strain in his voice as the air in his lungs thickened. The deep, heavy saw of his breath came faster as he fought to remain composed.

“I want to touch you…Miles,” she admitted, and he swallowed back a groan as his cock swelled to painful proportions.

“Come here,” he invited, holding out a trembling hand to her, and she closed the gap between them with agonizing slowness. She reached out and the sock tumbled—forgotten—from her hand as it opened to take his.

That first touch was like a jolt of electricity through his entire body. He sizzled with awareness of her. Of her closeness, of her soft skin against his, of the flowery scent of her ruthlessly bound hair.

He guided her captive hand to his chest, certain she could feel the frantic, heavy beat of his heart as it tried to hammer its way right into her palm.

“I’m all yours.”

Three words. Small, uncomplicated words.

I’m all yours.

Tiny words that promised complete sovereignty over the hot, smooth skin beneath her palm, and ownership of his magnificent body.

It was a freedom that Charity had never dreamed he would afford her. A privilege which hadn’t been offered to her in so long that she wasn’t certain what to do with it now…all she could do was act on instinct, desire, and need.

Her hand smoothed its way over the still damp expanse of his chest. Silky hair attractively dusted across his pecs, darkened and thickened as it followed a trail down the center of his chest, along the shallow valley between his abs and then spread to his flat stomach around his indented belly button.

His muscles spasmed and bunched beneath her tentative touch, and he bit back an anguished groan when she swept her hand back up, just missing his tight nipple on the way to his shoulder, where she wrapped her palm around that hard, muscled curve and squeezed gently.

He felt so wonderful. All smooth, tensile, and repressed strength.

She shifted closer until they were almost chest to chest; an echo of their pseudo-embrace that night at the pool…So close that she could feel the warmth of her own breath as it bloomed against the skin of his throat. All she had to do was be brave and bridge the virtually non-existent gap between them.

But she wasn’t certain she had any courage left. Not after the day she’d had. Joining him on his trip to Klein Bekkie, kissing him on the beach, and even telling him about Blaine. And now this; coming to his room, when she had known that it would lead to so much more.

Be brave. Her new mantra. Her prayer. Her wish…

She could be brave. She was brave.

Her lips touched his clean, damp, hot skin. Softened and blossomed against it.