“Your grandmother and Sebastian are downstairs in this house,” she said, stating the obvious.
“Erasmus, Libby, it’s Madelyn Malone! Wake up, wake up! I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“And Madelyn’s here!” he whisper-shrieked, sprinting to a chest of drawers and whipping out a pair of athletic pants.
“How is everyone able to get into your house?”
“Madelyn and her people have the alarm code. Remember, they brought your things here while we were…”
“At the police station. Yes, I remember.” Libby stared down at her sex-flushed skin and very naked body. This was not the way to make a good impression. This might be the way to make the worst impression ever made in the history of impressions. Shock and mortification hit like a blast of arctic air. After the giant slice of humiliation pie she’d hoovered yesterday, one would assume she’d built up a tolerance to the unpleasant emotion.
They’d be wrong.
This situation—the granny, son, nanny matchmaker trifecta crashing her orgasm-fest with the orgasms being supplied by her new boss—might vault her to the top spot of the most humiliation experienced by a twenty-five-year-old in a twenty-four-hour period.
She searched the bedroom. “Where are my clothes?”
Raz pulled a T-shirt on over his head. “In the laundry room.”
The laundry.
She grabbed a pillow and covered herself, well, the front of her body as she high-tailed it to the bedroom door. Peering out into the darkened hallway, her thrumming heartbeat slowed a fraction. The coast was clear. She inhaled a fortifying breath, then set off like a shot toward the end of the sprawling corridor. Charging into the laundry room, she flipped on the light and spied her clothes strewn about the floor. Like a little yoga ninja, she dressed at Mach-speed.
Granny panties?
Check.
White yoga capris?
A bit wrinkly, but no worse for wear, so…check.
Sparkly yoga-Barbie sports bra? Yes, ma’am, with sparkles intact!
She slid into that sucker, then gasped when she spied a hickey between her breasts.
To say things had gotten crazy in the kissing, hickey, and humping department might be the understatement of the century. Thankfully, the gold fabric concealed the red mark.
She plucked the aquamarine stone from the ground and slipped it into the hidden waist pocket on her yoga pants before sliding into her sneakers.
But she was missing something. What was it? Her sex-addled brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders.
She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror on the far wall.
She didn’t have her pop of power. Her red wrap.
She studied the empty washing machine as jubilation washed over her.
When had they changed the laundry from the washer to the dryer? Had all those orgasms given her memory loss?
“Are you ready?” Raz asked, peering into the room.
“Who switched the laundry from the washer to the dryer?” she asked, opening the dryer door and separating her red wrap from his hoodie.
A cocksure grin spread across his face. “Pretty impressive, yeah? I heard the buzzer go off when I left the bedroom to get a few more plums. Remember, you wanted to eat them off my abs?”
Yep, she’d requested the pleasure of dining off his body.
“I don’t think you can classify putting the wash into the dryer as an impressive feat. You’re smiling like the King of the Jungle.”
“I am the Lion.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” she tossed back, taking in the smirk—the same smirk that had once driven her to bang gongs and now drove her to bang beefcakes.
But the expression was short-lived. Raz’s conceited grin melted into a look of pure shock. “Plum, your neck!”
Her hand flew to her throat. “What about it?”
“You’ve got a love bite showing.”
“Love bite?” she echoed. Was he a boxer or a vampire? “You mean a hickey?”
“Whatever you call it here in America—I can see it on your neck, which means—”
“Your family and Madelyn might notice.” She threw on the wrap and held it closed at her neck like a Victorian schoolmarm. “Can you see anything? Is it hidden?”
“Erasmus, get your arse in gear, lad,” his grandmother called. “You’re not about to make an eighty-year-old woman with an arthritic hip climb this monstrosity of a staircase now, are you?”
“Granny is in rare form. She can be a right ball-buster. We better go,” he replied, waving for her to join him in the hallway.
They sprinted past the myriad of doors before booking it down the stairs. Screeching to a halt, they froze as they hit the first floor and found three people staring at them—three people positioned within a few feet of her yoga tote.
A yoga tote filled with vibrators.
Why hadn’t she put it away?
That was easy to answer.
She didn’t know where to put it. She hadn’t even set foot in her room. Having all that sex got in the way of a grand tour.
Libby’s heart jumped into her throat. She observed the woman standing next to Madelyn. With her salt-and-pepper-colored hair twisted into a bun, that must be Raz’s granny Fin, and the boy beside her had to be Sebastian.
Sebastian.
She parted her lips to greet the boy when Raz broke out into a bout of jumping jacks, right in the middle of the grand foyer.
“Libby and I are getting in some training,” Raz huffed, knocking out those jacks like a champ, which he was, so it made sense. She still wasn’t clear on why Raz had chosen the fitness ruse. Perhaps it had something to do with her sex-flushed cheeks. Whatever it was, she had to go along with it in hopes his family and Madelyn would buy it.
“It’s never too early for fitness,” she replied, upping the wattage on her grin. She glanced at Raz. She needed to get in on this fitness business—and fast. But she couldn’t join him in his jacks-a-thon. Her wrap would fly open if she flung her arms into the air. She couldn’t chance a hickey spotting. Instead, she parted her legs and sank into the splits.
A morning stretch never hurt anyone.
Because she was on the floor, she looked up to find everyone staring at her with their mouths hanging open.
Note to self: dropping into a splits position in a grand foyer with an audience of mostly strangers is not the best way to make an entrance.
Raz froze mid-jack. “Blimey, that’s quite a trick, plum!”
“You know I can do the splits. Remember, in the hallway when we—”
“Were discussing yoga positions,” Raz supplied.
Heat rushed to her cheeks. Her O might have returned, but her chi, her inner balance, was as lopsided as ever. Was she about to reference sex with her boss…in front of his son and grandmother?
Libby Lamb, act like a professional—and not the lady of the night sort of professional! A fitness professional.
“Yes, that’s correct. We were discussing yoga. This pose is called hanumanasana. That’s Sanskrit for this position known colloquially as the splits.”
And…crickets.
For the love of Buddha, get up!
No one said a word as she maneuvered to a standing position with the grace of a drunken sailor. Attempting to stand with crap balance while concealing hickeys was more challenging than it looked.