Rex glanced at his watch. Five o’clock. If he left now, he’d have time to take a quick shower and then play with the girls before dinner. “All right. I’m going. Call Juliana’s if you need me. Number’s by the phone.”
Forty minutes later, he parked his truck in the driveway beside Juliana’s sedan, climbed the stairs and rang her doorbell. No one responded to the bell or his knock, but using his key was too damned domesticated for him. He walked around to the back of the end-unit town house, but the girls weren’t on the patio, and he couldn’t see them through the French doors. Damn. He dug his key out of his pocket and let himself in. Using the key did not mean he and Juliana had a relationship beyond the girls and the lessons.
“Juliana? Becky? Liza?” Silence echoed back.
Bottles of nail polish stood like a line of candy-colored fence posts on the kitchen table, corralling a neat pile of hair ribbons and an assortment of other girlie stuff. Juliana’s purse leaned against a stack of child-care and babysitting books on the hall table. That she cared enough to try to learn more about his nieces shouldn’t get to him, but it did.
How could he have been so wrong in his initial assessment that she had more money than brains? He shrugged off his growing admiration. The last thing he needed was to soften up around her. Liking her and appreciating her generosity didn’t change the fact that he was in debt up to his neck to her family, or that she was looking for a walk on the wild side and he wasn’t. She wanted excitement and he wanted…
What did he want? Roots? Maybe. He scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. One of these days, when the bar was on a firmer footing, he wouldn’t mind having someone to come home to, but he’d made more than his share of mistakes and let a lot of people down. He shook his head. Even if he did decide to take a chance—one he was sure he’d blow—on something long-term, a banking heiress wouldn’t be interested in anything permanent from a long-haired biker with a highway education and a wardrobe consisting of jeans and T-shirts with the Renegade logo on the back. She’d end up with a college-educated GQ guy in a suit. A man like the other bachelors at the charity auction.
Juliana and the girls couldn’t be far if her purse and car were here. He locked up and headed for the playground. Excited, happy squeals made him detour toward the nearby pool. A couple of dozen folks populated the fenced area. Becky’s rebel yell drew his gaze to the shallow end. She launched herself from the side of the pool and hit the water with a decent splash, but bobbed back to the surface thanks to a new hot-pink life jacket. Next, he spotted Liza, also sporting a new life jacket in smiley-face yellow, her favorite color. She dog-paddled toward a slender, dark-haired woman whose mostly bare back faced him.
Juliana. He didn’t need to see her face to recognize her. Every male hormone in his body pointed her out like a hunting dog signaled quail. The line of her naked spine and the curve of her waist in the hip-deep water brought a flood of moisture to his mouth and kicked his heart into a staccato beat. Her two-piece swimsuit wasn’t skimpy by today’s standards, but knowing only a few scraps of fabric separated him from her bare skin hit him with the blast of a spotlight. Sweat oozed from his pores. His black shirt and jeans magnified his reaction by absorbing every hot ray of the evening sunshine. Her low and husky laugh at Becky’s antics only increased his discomfort.
Juliana ducked under the water, and Liza squealed and squirmed with joy and then cackled when Juliana shot out of the water, slicked back her hair and gently splashed Becky. Apparently, the banker had a playful side and the urge to play with her was getting damned hard for Rex to ignore. He gripped the white picket fence and struggled to corral his stampeding hormones.
“Uncle Rex!” Becky yelled.
Cover blown. He gritted a smile, ordered his body to behave and shoved open the gate. Juliana jerked around to face him and he nearly tripped over a seam in the sidewalk. Her breasts were round, pale, perfect and far too exposed in a blue top the exact shade of her eyes for his peace of mind.
“Wook, Unca Wex.” Liza’s voice drew his attention away from forbidden territory. “I swimmen.”
“And doing a great job of it, sweet pea. Hey, Beck, killer cannonball.” Becky responded by hauling herself out of the pool and launching another one, this one soaking him. He welcomed the cool water on his overheated skin.
“We’ve had a busy day.” Juliana’s quiet words forced him to look at her again—something he’d rather not do until she covered up from ears to ankles. “They should sleep well tonight.”
At the sight of all that creamy, curvaceous flesh on display, words failed him. He grunted an affirmative.
“Is something wrong? You’re supposed to be working.” She folded her arms across her middle, which should have helped his concentration since it covered a lot of skin, but the move pushed her breasts farther out of her suit, resulting in a negative effect on his brain function. It took him a few seconds to weed her question out of his testosterone-induced fog.
“Danny’s closing. I thought I’d take the girls out to dinner and then head back to my place. Tomorrow’s my day off, so I’ll keep ’em tonight and you can sleep in your own bed.” He glanced at Becky and Liza in time to see their faces fall.
Juliana waded toward the pool steps. “We’d planned to grill kebabs tonight, and we’ve made homemade ice cream. Why don’t you join us for dinner?”
Bad idea. How could he get out of it? “Kebabs?”
“We stuck ’em,” Liza said in as bloodthirsty a tone as he’d ever heard from a three-year-old. He grabbed her upraised hands, lifted her from the pool and set her on the concrete.
Juliana bit her lip, but she couldn’t hide the smile twitching on her mouth. The mischievous sparkle in her eyes slammed the breath right out of him. “The girls helped me assemble the kebabs. We bought the ice-cream freezer when we bought the life jackets. Cooking together seemed like a good activity.”
“Right. Dinner sounds good.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Becky vaulted out and gave him a soggy hug. He ruffled her wet hair with a surprisingly unsteady hand.
Juliana rose from the pool like a nymph in a wet dream. Rivulets of water cascaded over the peaks and valleys of a truly lust-worthy body. His throat closed and his skin ignited. The little flirty skirt of her bathing suit bottom stopped an inch below her navel, and the wet fabric clung to her hips like a second skin.
He exhaled slowly and turned his back on what he couldn’t have to help the girls dry off. The week ahead yawned like an eternity.
“Wook.” Liza lifted her hands. He blinked away the sensual haze clouding his vision, knelt beside Liza and focused on her tiny, pale pink-tipped nails. “Oo-liana painted dem.”
“Pretty.”
Juliana stopped beside them. Her toenails bore the same shade of polish. Rex fought the urge to trace the long, lean line of her legs with his gaze and lost. From his kneeling position on the concrete, the sight of those perfect breasts at eye level wreaked no end of havoc below his belt. Frustration and futility rose inside him.
Surrender man and be done with it.
No way. Too much to lose.
He stood and met the gaze of the woman determined to bring him to his knees. Damned if she didn’t have him like a fish on the hook, and fighting the line wasn’t getting him anywhere but reeled in and too tired to care. Unless he wanted to be left on the dock gasping for air, then he had to do something fast.
But he had a feeling it was too late.
Rex prowled around Juliana’s den like a caged animal. Examining an item here, looking out a window there, but never remaining still for more than a few seconds.
With