“I should be thanking you. I appreciated the meal.”
Tessa didn’t know what to say. A silent moment passed. Neither moved or spoke, and she felt herself falling into his eyes.
Wrong, bad, and so, so stupid.
She cleared her throat. “If you’ll follow me, I’ll show you where to find everything you need for a shower.”
He backed away with a respectful nod and followed her down the hall. Tessa was aware of him, mere steps and breaths behind her. She tried not to let his nearness rattle her, especially since this attraction was surely one-sided.
When she reached the spare bathroom, she pointed to the cabinet above the commode. “Towels and washcloths up here, along with a fresh bar of soap.”
“Thanks.”
She turned back to him with a nod and noticed a few things: First, the spare shower was the size of a postage stamp. She’d never realized how small it was before. Would Zy actually fit in there? Second, he seemed somehow closer and she couldn’t quite breathe. Third, he was blocking the door.
“If you, um…have any trouble with the shower, let me know.”
“Trouble?”
“You’re big and…” Picturing him naked with water sluicing down all those undoubtedly hard, bronzed muscles was derailing her train of thought. She’d known her hormones had been screwed up since giving birth, but having him so close wasn’t helping.
His sexy smirk had her heart kicking up a notch. “I’ll manage.”
“Okay.”
Still, he didn’t move, didn’t speak. Their eyes met.
“I need to, um…” She gestured toward the hall.
“Oh, sure.” He stepped to let her pass.
Once she exited the little bathroom and put space between them, she could breathe again. Her body temperature seemed to drop about ten degrees.
How was she going to prevent making an idiot of herself around him?
“If you’d like to shower up, I’ll look at your wounds and change your bandages afterward.”
“That’s not necessary.”
She gave him a wry smile. “The colonel made me promise I would at least once a day.”
“That underhanded bastard.”
“He was pretty sure you weren’t doing it.”
Zy sighed. “So he made sure you would.”
“Pretty much.”
“All right. Give me ten.”
“I’ll just be watching TV.” And trying not to imagine you naked.
Zy sent her a mock salute and stepped inside the bathroom again. Tessa settled into a recliner with Hallie on her lap and turned on the TV. She’d missed the end of the cooking show she’d been watching but found another one with the same brash British chef. Absently, she bounced her baby on her lap and picked her phone off the nearby table to find a text from the colonel. Quickly, she assured him that all was well.
And then…she had nothing to do except think about Zy. Stripping off his shirt to bare his strong torso. Removing his jeans and sliding down his underwear to reveal hard muscles. He’d be hot everywhere. Hard everywhere. Big everywhere.
And good lord, her imagination was getting the best of her.
She grabbed the remote and changed channels, finding a silly show about one man dating a hoard of women in his supposed attempt to find a wife. He pranced into the swimming pool, followed by his harem, all seemingly vying for his attention—or media exposure. The guy wasn’t unattractive.
But Zy was way hotter.
And she needed to stop thinking about him as anything other than her bodyguard and co-worker.
“I’m ready,” he called behind her.
Given how achy her body was in places it shouldn’t be, she was, too. But those were her rebellious hormones talking. She wasn’t having sex with him.
The doctor cleared you to resume all normal activity.
She had, but nope. Not happening.
Tessa stood. “Let me set Hallie on her activity mat and find my first aid supplies.”
As soon as her baby girl was happily engaged on the bright mat, Tessa turned to face Zy and stopped—moving, breathing, thinking.
He stood in front of her wearing a pair of black low-slung sweatpants—and nothing else. His five o’clock shadow inched onto his thick neck, which gave way to two thick slabs of bronze muscles. Both bulging shoulders were covered in tribal tattoos that ran down his beefy arms, flanking abs so ridiculously taut calling them a six-pack would be an insult. He even had those notches above his hips that made her drool.
Mercy me!
“Where do you want to do this?”
On the bed? Against the wall?
But he wasn’t asking about sex, and she needed to stop thinking about it. “Why don’t you sit on the sofa? Are the wounds on your back?”
“Mostly, yeah.” He sauntered closer, closer, sat on the edge of her soft couch, then sent her an expectant stare.
First aid kit. Right. “Two seconds.”
Tessa whirled away and drew in a breath, trying to calm herself. On the top shelf of her pantry, she found her first aid supplies. Since she wasn’t sure what he needed, she grabbed everything, washed her hands, then turned back to Zy.
He watched her, stare unsettlingly direct and unwavering. “You okay?”
“Of course.” But his question implied that he’d noticed her staring. She tried to break the tension with a smile. “It’s just a little odd having a half-naked stranger in my house.”
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. As soon as we’re done, I’ll toss on a shirt.”
“It’s fine.” Except she’d have to touch him first.
Tessa laid all the supplies on her coffee table, then scooted in behind Zy, staring at the wide expanse of his back. He’d been injured more than once. A collection of scars—some fresh, some faded—littered the landscape of his skin, but she barely noticed. His shoulders were broad and beefy, the right one crisscrossed with a series of scrapes, stitches, and bruises. And his muscles had muscles. From there, a series of ripples and bulges flanked his strong spine as his body tapered to narrow hips.
She sat frozen. She’d only ever seen anything like him in a magazine.
“That bad?” he asked.
His question jolted her out of her trance. “Just trying to decide what might work best. It’s scabbed over, but I see signs of infection trying to set in. Give me a minute.”
“Sure.”
Tessa did her best to gather her wits, dousing a cotton pad with some hydrogen peroxide. As she pressed it to his wounds, she glanced at the other set of stitches just above his ear, much harder to detect as the hair he’d had brutally buzz cut all over grew around it.
“How did you get injured?” she asked as she cleaned that spot as well.
“This time? Bryant, Walker, Trees, and I were playing dodge the RPG in Mexico. I nearly lost.”
She already knew better than to ask why they’d been down there. “RPG? Like a rocket launcher?”
“More or less. Cartels have no sense of humor.”
Of course not, and she didn’t know how he could.
“Anyway, shrapnel and debris from the ground beside the impact point sprayed up and tagged me. Some damn rock hit my head, too. I had a concussion and I apparently bled like a bitch. Scared Trees to death. But I made fun of him later for panicking at all the blood.”