The Naughty List Bundle - Kylie Adams [270]
And then finally he heard her.
“Jordan?”
“Right here.” The words, whispered low, barely made it past the restriction in his throat. He didn’t turn to face her, attempting to get himself back under control first. But damn, it was impossible. It was insane.
He could smell her, he thought with an edge of urgency, sweet and warm and so damn female. Even fresh from her shower, he detected her scent. He felt like a bull in full rut.
He cleared his throat. “There’s a cup of coffee waiting for you on the counter.”
Her footsteps were nearly silent as she padded to the kitchen and back. He knew she was coming out to him.
“Thank you.” She, too, had lowered her voice, and there was an edge of wariness in her tone. He heard her sip, then heard the creak of the glider as she sat down. “I should have known you’d make great coffee.”
It sounded like an accusation. Slowly Jordan turned to face her. Moonlight touched her in selective places—over the crown of her hair, making it glow a soft gold, across her shoulders now covered in a baggy white cotton pullover, and her knees, bare from the sloppy gray sweat-shorts she wore. There were thick white ankle socks on her feet.
Not a seductive outfit, at least not deliberately. But then, nothing that she’d done to him had been deliberate. Most of her face was hidden, but he saw enough.
“My God, you’re beautiful.” Without the makeup, she looked young and innocent and…distressed. Because of him?
Her quiet laugh was incredulous. “Hardly that. Only my mother, who loves me dearly, would ever call me beautiful.”
Jordan heard the words, but he couldn’t quite comprehend them. Not with her sitting there making him shake with the most profound emotions he’d ever experienced.
She laughed again, nervously this time as he continued to stare. “But I suppose anything is an improvement after the war paint, especially since it had all been smudged. I nearly scared myself when I looked in the mirror.”
She took another drink of the coffee, then set the mug beside her on the floor. With a loose-limbed dexterity that amazed him, she twisted one leg up across her lap and began massaging her foot. “Now, about our talk.”
Jordan looked at her foot, so small and feminine, less than half the size of his own. He breathed hard and felt like an idiot. How the hell could her feet raise his fevered urgency to the breaking point? He searched his beleaguered brain for an ounce of logic.
“You’re going to need some help for the next few days.” Damn, he hadn’t meant to blurt that out.
She paused, looking up at him with a blank sort of dis-belief. She forced a smile. “We’ll be fine.”
In for a penny, in for a pound…. “Who will watch your children,” he asked, “while you visit your mother at the hospital? I assume you’ll want to visit her?”
That got her frowning. “Of course I will! I’m not going to just leave her there….”
“I didn’t think so.” The love she felt for her mother, the closeness, was as obvious to him as her feelings for her children. It had pained him to witness her worry, her fear. All his life, he’d had his family around him, his mother, his brothers, ready to share any burdens, ready to support him in any way they could. But the one person Georgia had was now ailing, and it turned him inside out trying to imagine how the hell she could cope with that reality.
His own mother was the epitome of female strength, her love and loyalty unshakeable, unquestionable. She was fierce in her independence, and God help anyone who tried to come between her and her family.
He knew if it was his mother in the hospital right now, he’d move heaven and earth for her. But Georgia didn’t have his financial or familial resources.
Georgia needed him, and his mother would be the first to have his head if he didn’t insist on helping. As much as it pained him, he was going to have to put lust aside, at least for the time being.
“What will you do when you have to work?” Jordan asked. “Do you have any baby-sitters? Other than your mother, I mean.”
Her head snapped up and she dropped