"You-" Charity turned on Ross the moment her aunt had left.
"Me," he agreed happily, bending down to kiss the tip of her nose before she could protect herself. "I get to be your husband after all. I couldn't help it. There she was at the door, and there I was answering the door in my paja mas. What was I supposed to do-tell her I was merely your guest for the night?"
"But we'd decided not to lie."
"You decided. I've always been for it." He slipped out of bed. "I'm going to clean my stuff out of the spare bed room before she gets back. We don't want her thinking the happy couple is sleeping apart, do we?"
Charity groaned and hid her face in her pillow while Ross left the room. He was whistling, which made her gnash her teeth. Destiny seemed to have taken a hand, and she didn't see that there was much she could do about it for the moment.
She dressed quickly, pulling on a sweatshirt and blue jeans. She ran a brush through her hair but ignored makeup. Emerging from her bathroom, she found Ross climbing into a pair of slacks. Instead of retreating as she would normally have done, she stood in the doorway and watched, her hands on her hips, just to emphasize that she wasn't pleased with the way things were turning out, and that she wasn't about to concede the stewardship of this project to him.
"Think I need a shirt?" he asked wryly, reading her motives and not beyond teasing her.
"I think you need a keeper," she snapped, wishing she didn't like the view of his naked chest quite so much.
"Exactly," he agreed, reaching into one of the many piles he'd made on her bedroom floor and pulling out a soft sea-green polo shirt. "That's why I decided to go ahead and marry you."
"We are not married," she said evenly, watching him stick his arms in the armholes, raise the shirt over his head and then get his head caught in the neck because he hadn't undone the buttons.
"Here." She came to his rescue, going on tiptoe to open the top button and then tugging on the shirt to get it down past his wide shoulders.
"You can't even be trusted to dress yourself," she grumbled, but at the same time she let her fingers graze the smooth naked flesh she was covering. She then let her hands rest for a mo ment at his hips, and when he wrapped her in his arms, she could only sigh and close her eyes, reveling in his warmth.