Shotgun Nanny (12 page)

The second thing she noticed was that Mark was in a fine temper. His eyes were cold, hard, blue ice chips in a face of stone, the jaw so powerfully clamped she was surprised she couldn’t hear his teeth cracking under the strain.

There were dents in the beer can he was gripping—dents just about the size of his fingers—and, far from lounging, he paced until he caught sight of her, then stood rigid as a totem pole and glared at her.

Seemed like her seduction wasn’t going to be as easy as she’d planned.

“Hi,” she said breezily.

“I see my friend here didn’t lie. Hi, beautiful, I’m Brodie.” He came forward with a cocky stride and an easy grin. Handshakes weren’t usually sexy in her experience, but he managed to make his a come-on.

Mark reminded her forcibly of a volcano about to blow. “Don’t you have a tennis date?” he asked his friend pointedly.

Brodie gestured with his beer can toward the nearest window, where drops of water splattered the pane. “Rained out. Besides, I wanted to meet Annie.” He shot her a killer grin.

She returned it.

And heard a metallic ding as Mark added another dent to his beer can. “You’ll have to postpone it. I need to talk to Annie.”

“Look, buddy, it’s my fault. I forgot about the gate. How was she supposed to know emergency alarms would go off at mission control?” Brodie asked in a tone that suggested he was repeating himself.

Alarms? Mission control? Oh, no. She’d done it again. With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she conceded that propping Mark’s high-tech security gate open with a shoe probably hadn’t been all that smart. She faced her stone-faced employer. “I’m really sorry. I never thought—”

“That’s exactly the problem. You never do think. You just take off from one irresponsible, harebrained act to another.” His words blasted her like a blowtorch.

“Uncle Mark, she didn’t—”

“Go to your room, Emily. This doesn’t concern you.”

Both females stared at him in shock. He’d never used that tone with his niece before.

“Don’t you yell at Emily!”

“She’s my niece, not yours!” he shouted back.

“You better not do anything mean to Annie,” Emily contributed. And with that she burst into tears and dashed out of the room.

Kitsu, not to be left out, rushed into the fray barking and growling at all of them indiscriminately. Then, catching sight of his rubber squirrel in the corner, he took his frustrations out on that, gripping it fiercely in his teeth and shaking it back and forth, growling ferociously the entire time. Having made his point, he glared at the three adults and trotted after Emily, the mauled and sorry-looking rubber squirrel hanging from his mouth.

“The dog takes that round,” Brodie commented.

Mark glared at him. “Would you take a hike?”

“Uh-uh. I wouldn’t miss this for anything,” Brodie said, lounging once more.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Annie said, starting to get seriously steamed.

“The doors to the house were all locked.”

Mark took a step toward her, and she fought an impulse to step back. She’d never seen him so mad. “The deal is, one—” he slapped one forefinger against the other “—

when you breach the system you compromise everybody’s safety. Two—” he banged his middle finger “—false alarms are expensive and time-consuming. Three—” his ring finger took the strike “—I’ve got a dictator coming to town—”

“To take lessons from you?” she interrupted.

A soft chuckle came from Brodie’s direction. “I think Annie takes that game.”

“Four,” Annie shouted, so angry she felt like throwing things. One bullheaded exMountie, for a start. “You are such a pigheaded, Neanderthal control freak, you can’t stand to let anybody out of your sight.”

“Set.” Brodie mimed a tennis serve, but the two combatants were so intent on each other, neither paid attention.

“I don’t dare—every time I turn my back you do something stupid.”

“The only stupid thing I ever did was take this job in the first place. Let me remove my harebrained, irresponsible,
stupid
self from your presence. I quit.”

She grabbed her leather bag and stormed blindly toward the door. She heard Brodie’s voice like a sports announcer’s. “And match!”

“Where do you think you’re going?” She heard Mark stomping behind her and swung around. But before she could launch another verbal assault, Brodie was there taking her arm.

“She’s coming for dinner with me.”

She opened her mouth to refuse, then heard Mark say, “Oh, no she’s not.”

She gave Brodie her most dazzling smile. “Thanks, I’d love to.”

HE PACED the house like a caged beast. He was going to fire her.

How dare she quit on him?

And as for that Brodie… When he got his hands on his former friend the man was going to be sorry he was ever born. Only Emily being in the house stopped Mark from jumping in his vehicle to go after his former nanny and his former friend.

Instead he was stuck at home, cursing and waiting, knowing she’d probably end up in Brodie’s arms for the night while Mark was the one who’d been aching for her ever since the moment he saw her. Maybe he was a Neanderthal, but if Brodie laid so much as one finger on her, he’d…well he’d think of something.

He made his peace with Emily, assuring her Annie would be back soon and hoping beyond hope he was right.

Then he went back to pacing. It was stupid to torture himself this way. He should start planning for the dictator’s arrival at the conference. He should do some paperwork. Work

out.

Get some sleep.

Still, he paced. And wished he hadn’t gone off the deep end. It was just that he’d been so damned worried. And scared that something had happened to them.

For the hundredth time he peered into the night. Her car was still there, so she’d have to come back sometime. He really didn’t want it to be tomorrow morning, in Brodie’s passenger seat.

She was right. He did worry too much. And she was responsible in her own way, he had to admit. He shouldn’t have lost his cool. When she came back, he’d apologize.

Around midnight he gave up and had a long, hot shower, hoping to ease some of his tension. Then he shaved. He didn’t stop to ask himself why. As he was drying off, he heard a car engine. A loud, in-your-face sports car engine. He knew that sound.

Bolting naked to the window, he was in time to see the passenger door of the red car open. The indoor light came on, spotlighting what happened next.

Brodie said something, and she turned to him. Even from this distance Mark recognized the sweet smile she turned on his old buddy. She shook her head, then leaned forward and brushed Brodie’s lips with hers before getting out and shutting the car door behind her.

He had his bathrobe on in seconds and pounded down the stairs tying the belt.

By the time he got the door open she’d reached her car, and Brodie was long gone. The fact that her car was her destination, rather than his house, infuriated him all over again. He stomped up to her. “Going to Brodie’s place?”

“None of your business.”

“You didn’t get enough? Mauling each other in his car like a couple of teenagers?” What he’d seen had been a chaste peck, nothing more, and he knew it. But damn if she was getting away before they’d finished the fight they had started.

At first, he thought she wasn’t going to answer, then she turned to face him, and her green eyes caught the light of the moon, dazzling him. “Jealous?” she whispered in a voice that taunted even as it thrilled him. Her lips were soft and full, pursed in a sassy way.

“Damn right I’m jealous.” He didn’t even think, just grabbed her to him tight and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

She gave a little whimpery sigh against his lips and then wrapped herself around him.

He thrust his tongue deeply, possessively into her mouth, and she licked up and down its length with her own, making him weak in the knees with the power of his desire.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered when he came up for air.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped in answer, and then they were kissing again.

Cool air currents eddied around them while the heat between them built. Then he felt cool air where it had no business being. She’d taken him in her hands beneath the parted robe.

He groaned helplessly as she touched and caressed him, knowing he had about three seconds of conscious thought left before instinct and desire took over completely.

They’d never make it upstairs, their need was too urgent, but neither would he risk even the remotest chance that Em might look out her window and see them. Annie was leaning against her little car, which wouldn’t fit a pair of mating chipmunks, never mind two grown adults.

But his Jeep would.

He grabbed her hands and led her to his vehicle, found the spare key in its magnetized box and opened the back door.

He thought she might balk. Instead she swiftly stripped off her shorts, leaving her in nothing but a cropped, tight T-shirt and one of those thong things by way of underwear. He damn near lost it right there.

But the thing he needed most was upstairs in his bedside table. With a silent groan, he leaned his head on the door frame, which only gave him a better view of Annie, all eager for him in the back seat, the little jewel in her navel winking at him.

Then he remembered. “Your bag. Where’s your bag?”

“I don’t know. I dropped it, I think.”

He found it in seconds on the ground beside her car. Rummaging through, he gave a silent crow of triumph. The open box of condoms was still there. He stuck them in his pocket.

He eased into the back seat, then shut the door with the quietest of clicks, plunging them into darkness. In his haste, he banged his elbow on a headrest, and his knee got tangled up in his bathrobe.

“I’m too old for this,” he grumbled, groping around until he found her breasts.

“Or not.”

She chuckled softly. “Not too old, but definitely too big. You’re squishing me.”

With more grunting and shuffling and bumping of body parts, which only inflamed them more, they found a better position, sitting facing each other. Ignoring his cramped knees, he reached out and touched the soft flesh of her thighs.

With a little whimper, she opened her legs to him.

He made her wait just a little bit while he savored the soft tenderness of the inside of her thighs inch by soft, sweet inch, until at last he reached higher and cupped the crisp warmth of her nest of curls.

Even as she sighed against him, his hand stalled. “What happened to your underpants?”

“They melted,” she whispered.

When he cupped the moist heat of her, he almost believed it. Beneath his middle finger he felt the slick wetness that told him she was as excited as he. Unable to stop himself, he slid that finger slowly deeper, letting her suck him in like hot quicksand.

Her head fell back, and her hips arched against him. She was so slick and so very hot. Crazy little sounds were coming from her lips, and deep within her he could feel a trembling begin. He plunged a second finger into her, and just like that she shattered.

He leaned toward her, wanting to taste her.

“Wait. Wait,” Annie panted, pulling back.

He gazed at her dumbly, knowing he’d gone too far to stop now. She’d have to really, really want to call a halt before he’d give up on what they’d started, and one glance at her heated cheeks and drugged-looking eyes was enough to confirm that she didn’t want to stop any more than he did.

What she wanted, he soon discovered, was to take control.

And he was happy to let her.

She straddled him, grunting when she hit her head on the roof, then dug into his pocket and efficiently sheathed him, turning it into a caress that left him burning for her.

She didn’t make him wait long, but spread herself over him and slowly eased him into her. He felt the slight pull as she closed around him, so tight, so hot.

He wanted to plunge and thrust wildly, but he held himself rigidly still until she was ready.

“You are so big,” she gasped once she held him completely inside her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, contrite. “I should have warned you.”

She giggled happily. “It’s okay. Really.”

Then she started moving, and he stopped thinking. And pretty soon he lost all control and plunged and thrust while she rode him until they both cried out and slumped against each other, spent and gasping.

He patted the leather seat beneath them. “Good thing this baby’s got four-wheel drive. That was some wild ride.”

10

NOW THAT the first urgency was spent, they had time to go more slowly. But he’d had enough of the cramped back seat.

He dropped a kiss on her tousled hair. “Let’s go to my room.”

“But

Emily

might—”

“The door locks. Come on.”

While she scrambled into her panties and shorts, he tied his bathrobe, returned the condoms to her bag and locked both their vehicles.

Then they crept into the house and up to his bedroom, pausing outside Em’s room just long enough to confirm the regular, even breathing of a child’s deep sleep.

Once inside his bedroom, he flicked on the bedside lamp, and she looked around her with obvious interest. “It’s nice. Different than I expected. More…”

He watched her eyes scan the Scandinavian decor he’d liked so much he hadn’t bothered changing it when he bought the house. Instead he’d purchased pale wood furniture of sleek Danish design to match. “More what?”

“Sexy, I guess.”

“Haven’t you seen it before?”

“No. I was curious. But I didn’t want to pry.”

He liked that. That she’d stayed out of his room. She had a lot of class, this crazy clown with the bra phobia. And speaking of bra phobia, he caught the outline of her breasts against the thin cotton of her little shirt, and his libido roared back even stronger than before as he studied the round swell of breast, the peak jutting teasingly forward. His fingers utterly ached to take that tiny peak, and its twin, well in hand.

He shut the door with a click, leaning behind him to lock it securely.

Her eyes widened when she saw what he was doing, and for a second he thought she’d flee. “I’m not used to locked doors.” Then she seemed to pull herself together and smiled her tempting smile.