Excerpt from Short and Sexy, copyright 2010 by Meg Harris.
Cover copyright 2012 by Phycel Designs.
Angela Patterson sighed and stretched out, luxuriating in the sensation of hot water. She loved bubble baths. They were so totally relaxing. After she'd spent the day dealing with cranky bank customers, she seriously needed to relax.
She leaned her head back against the edge of the tub, closed her eyes, and gave another long sigh of contentment.
The door slammed open, and she yelped and jerked upright.
Her best friend Mark Abbott stood there, staring at her. "Uh..." he said. He was looking at her, but not quite meeting her eyes, and she glanced down and realized that her torso was no longer beneath the water. It was covered in bubbles, but they didn't really conceal a whole lot.
"Mark." She almost growled at the interruption. No one interrupted her bubble baths, damn it. Not even gorgeous, ripped, dark-haired demigods. "What do you want?"
He stared at the bubbles some more, and she started to get a pretty good idea what he wanted. "Let me rephrase," she said. "Why the hell are you in my bathroom?"
His gaze jerked up guiltily, and he blinked at her like he was surprised by the question. "Because of your text message."
"My what?" She frowned at him. "I didn't text you. My phone's not waterproof, you know."
"It said you were in trouble. You weren’t out in the living room, so I thought…" His gaze wandered back down.
"I don't even have my phone. I loaned it to..."
Her voice died out, and he nodded, his eyes lighting with understanding. "Becca."
"Of course." Angela growled at her friend’s name. "Damn her. And damn your buddy Ed too, because I bet it was his idea. Ever since the two of them started dating, they've been trying to get us together. But they've never done anything this blatant before."
"Yeah," he agreed, staring at her like he was transfixed. "We should probably be really pissed."
"Totally. I mean, who would do something like that?"
"Uh..." He lifted his gaze, with an obvious effort. "Friends, maybe. Friends who think we'd make a good couple, and don't mind resorting to sneaky tricks to get us to realize it."
"But that's so silly. We've been BFFs for years. What makes them think our relationship could get any better if we started dating?"
He shrugged a broad shoulder. "I really don't think they mean any harm by it, Angie."
"No, I suppose not. But it's kind of embarrassing to have you barging in here when I'm taking a bath."
He stared into her eyes for a moment longer, then shook his head like he was coming out of a trance. It dawned her on her that he didn't look nearly as embarrassed as she would have expected. "Uh, yeah. I, uh, I'm sorry I interrupted. I guess I better get going."
His gaze moved down to her breasts again. A lot of the bubbles had slid back into the water, or popped, and they provided a lot less coverage than they once had. She couldn't miss the look of hunger in his blue eyes.
"Since you're here anyway..." She paused for a long moment. "Do you like bubbles, Mark?"
A huge grin broke over his face. He stripped really, really fast, and all of a sudden the water was sloshing over the edges of the tub, and there was a massive, beautiful guy in the tub with her, totally naked and grinning from ear to ear.
"I like bubbles a lot," he said.
"Cool," she said, eyeing the broad chest and shoulders that rose above the bubbles. "We've shared everything else over the years. Might as well share a bubble bath."
"Yeah," he agreed, reaching out and dragging her against him. "BFFs really ought to share everything."
"Even bubble baths?"
He lowered his head and kissed her, hard, and she felt the unmistakable response of his body against her. Her own body responded with a rush of heat, and she thought foggily that the only thing better than a bubble bath was a bubble bath with a gorgeous guy in it.
At last he raised his head and grinned at her.
"Especially bubble baths," he said.
