Page 190 of Untouchable

Caleb gave a wordless grunt as a response.

She pitched her voice as a lilting taunt. “I guess he’s too old to be roused.”

She left when he didn’t respond. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her, but she thought he probably had. She knew him really well by now. No matter how consumed he was by work, there was no way he could resist a challenge like that.

She went to change into the swimsuit she’d bought earlier in the week to celebrate the arrival of warm weather—a dark red bikini that left little to the imagination—and she went to lie out by the pool, figuring she’d be seeing Caleb pretty quickly.

She was enjoying the warmth of the sun on her skin when she heard the gate to the pool area open about ten minutes later. She managed to hide a smile as she opened her eyes behind her sunglasses and saw Caleb approaching.

He’d changed into a swimsuit too, and he was smiling at her with a familiar heat that looked almost predatory.

But she was annoyed with him for working when he wasn’t supposed to, so she kept her body still, rather than showing the sudden surge of feeling she felt at his presence.

“I approve of the bikini,” he murmured, his voice slightly thick as his eyes crawled up and down her outstretched body.

She stretched and let out a long sigh as if she were too sleepy to focus on conversation. “I’m glad.”

Then she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep.

She felt him watching her for a minute, and she could almost hear his mind working, figuring things out—what she was thinking, how he should respond, what he should do to address her annoyance.

When she could hear him moving around, she peeked out of her mostly closed eyelids to see that he was leaning over the chaise beside her, stretching out his back.

No wonder. He’d probably been sitting in that desk chair since she’d left the house hours ago.

Her eyes lingered on his lean body—his long legs, firm thighs, strong arms, impressive shoulders. The rippling muscles in his back. He had a really good body for a man his age. Her appreciation for his body was inevitably mingled with everything else she knew about him. His relentless will, the dark shadows in his soul, the power and intelligence and humor, the tenderness at the heart of him that he’d only recently allowed to come out.

She loved all of it. All ofhim. Body and mind and heart. Even when he was being annoying.

She felt herself melting as she watched, and she was about to drag him down on top of her when she noticed that his motion as he stretched gradually became slower, more intentional.

It was strange. Not at all like he normally moved. Her eyes lingered on his tight ass. It was almost like he was…

She suddenly knew what he was doing. She could even see the corner of his mouth twitch up in suppressed humor before he managed to hide it. She almost laughed out loud at the revelation, filled with amusement and appreciation and affection.

“That doesn’t work on women,” she said instead, struggling to hide the laughter bubbling up inside her.

He turned to meet her eyes with a bland expression. “What doesn’t?”

His tone was perfectly convincing. He’d always been a good liar. Just as good as she was. But she knew him better than anyone else. “Luring me out of my perfectly justified mood with your body. As fine as it is, that doesn’t work on women. We don’t have dicks to be led around by. Well, I guess I can’t speak for all other women, but it doesn’t work onme.”

He stopped trying to hide his smile as he stretched out on the chaise beside her. “Oh well,” he said, grinning at her. “It was worth a try.”

She couldn’t resist his grin—or anything else about him—so she got up and lowered herself on top of him, straddling his hips with her legs and leaning down to kiss him.

He returned to the kiss slowly, deeply, but he was still smiling when she finally pulled away. “I guess it did work,” he said, looking quite pleased with himself.

“No, it didn’t. I wasn’t that annoyed by you working when you weren’t supposed to. Appealing to my libido will only get you so far.”

He took her head in both his hands and pulled her down into another soft kiss, this one almost gentle. “I wasn’t appealing to your libido. I was appealing to your heart.”

She knew he was right. He hadn’t wanted her to be overcome with lust by his little show. He’d wanted her to laugh and remember how much she loved him—exactly as she’d done.

She smiled, relaxing in his arms. “My heart always seems to get me in trouble with you.”

He brushed a kiss into her hair. “Yours isn’t the only one.”

“I wasn’t even supposed to have a heart.”