Wild About the Man (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted) by Joss Wood Read Free Book Online

jumped down from the side of the Landy, her ruined shoes in her fingers. She looked at them and sighed … Poor shoes.
    Clem started for the house but a pair of fingers snagged the waistband of her denim shorts and she was brought to a sudden halt.
    ‘What—?’
    ‘Where do you think you are going?’ Nick growled.
    ‘I am going to shower.’
    ‘You are not going into my house smelling like that,’ Nick told her, pulling her backwards. Clem twisted in an effort to get out his grip and nearly managed it until a strong arm bounded around her waist and hauled her against his chest.
    Nick swore. ‘You’ve given me your stench!
    Damn it, Red!’
    He easily held her with one hand and grabbed hold of the spigot of the garden hose, flipping the tap open with his knee. Without warning, he dropped Clem and turned the hose on her and she gasped when a stream of cold water hit her in the face.
    Clem slapped her hands to her face and turned her back to the deluge. ‘
Nick
!’
    ‘Princess?’ The water hit her shoulder, the back of her neck, drenched her hair.
    ‘I’m going to disembowel and string you up for the hyenas!’ she shouted in between her splutters.
    ‘You can try,’ Nick said, aiming the water at her bottom. ‘What on earth did you sit in, Red?’
    Clem twisted to look. ‘A bag burst and I slipped. I think it’s a mixture of rotten tomatoes and cabbage.’ She tipped her head back as Nick aimed the water at her chest. ‘Actually, that’s kind of nice. It’s the first time I’ve felt cool since I got here.’
    ‘I think that’s a spinach leaf on your ankle.’
    ‘Eeew.’ Clem reached down and picked the leaf off her skin. ‘So, am I clean enough to go into your precious house?’
    ‘Not in those clothes. Strip.’
    Clem lifted her eyebrows. ‘I beg your pardon?’
    Nick looked impatient. And amused. ‘I can still smell you and ninety per cent of the smell is in your clothes. I’ll get you a towel if you’re feeling modest.’
    Oh, she was very tired of that smirky smile, that expression that said he was dealing with the village idiot. He wanted her to strip?
    Well, OK then …
    Clem narrowed her eyes and, without removing her annoyed gaze from his face, lifted her vest and pulled it up and over her head and dropped it to the grass. Standing in her low-cut lacy scarlet bra, she reached for the snap of her denims.
    Nick tried to looked insouciant but she saw the telltale muscle jump in his jaw. So she flipped open the buttons and deliberately wiggled her shorts down her legs, slowly revealing a brief pair of matching panties. The hosepipe in Nick’s hand dropped as she stepped out of the denims—destinedto be burnt—and she swung her hips as she sauntered up to him.
    His eyes were everywhere they shouldn’t be and, for once, she was OK with that because he didn’t notice what she was doing. In a flash she lifted the pipe and directed a stream of water at his crotch before whipping it up and directing it into his open-with-shock mouth.
    Grinning, she dropped the hose and, listening to him splutter, walked into the house. She hadn’t been a lingerie model for nothing.
    When Nick brought Clem back to the house it was after five and she was shattered. She showered, hopped out and could still smell the rubbish dump on her skin so she hopped back in. She’d used up half a bottle of her favourite shampoo and she still reeked of … something vile.
    It had been a dismal day, she decided. After her hose down—with neither of them referring to her impromptu striptease—a shower and a huge salad sandwich in the staff canteen at lunch time, Nick had carted her off to the laundry room, where she was given a pile of sheets to iron. After she’d burnt two million-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, the housekeeper had thrown a hissy fit, picked up the sheet and cursed her in her native language. She’d been hustled out of the laundry, told that she was useless, that she was making the sheets smell and