I grasped her elbow. "Whoa, take it easy. Don't pass out. There are no dogs here at the moment. Are you afraid of them?"
She squashed her lips between her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, then sucked in a deep and noisy breath through her nostrils. Shaking off whatever it was, she squared her shoulders. "I am not afraid of dogs." She winced. "Most of the time."
Jeez, this girl was a tangled mess of phobias. Dogs. Naked people. What next? She was hot, and kind of sweet in a bat-shit crazy way, but completely neurotic.
I considered the stairs and the rooms they led to, rooms occupied by naturists. Lots of naturists. All of whom would be stampeding out of the dining hall anytime. How would Mara react to nude people playing miniten? She might freak when saw the thugs, the wedge-shaped boxes used to bat the tennis ball around in miniten. A thug kind of sort of resembled a Saint Bernard's head. If you squinted hard, and if you were an outrageously uptight city girl who was terrified of nudity.
"Tell you what," I said. "Why don't you stay in the little house, the one on the other side of the driveway? Val and Eve aren't here right now, so you can hang at their place until we sort out what to, uh, do with you."
Mara picked up her shoes. "Who are Val and Eve?"
"The owners of this resort."
She bit her lip. "Are you sure they won't mind?"
"Nah, they're cool. I've been staying in their house, but I can move if you'd feel weird about sharing a house with me."
"As long I have my own room, I'm fine with it."
"Yeah, you get your own room. With a door that locks." I hefted her bags off the floor, stifling a grunt. "Follow me. This is a family-friendly resort, so you don't have to worry about anything really crazy going on here. But it's probably best if you don't look into the dining hall."
She nodded gravely, still biting her lip.
Damn, I wanted to take that lip between my teeth and suck on it.
Instead, I led Mara out of the guest house and across the driveway to the little ranch house where Val and Eve lived. Until last summer, Eve had run the resort alone and cooked all the meals for all the guests in her kitchen. Ever since she and Val got together, and he became her business partner, they had loads of money to blow on improvements for the resort. Val was super rich, thanks to his previous careers as a soccer player and then a model. So now we had a big kitchen in the newly built addition to the guest house.
When we got to the door, I set down Mara's bags and dug the keys out of my pocket to unlock the door. I pushed it open, gesturing for Mara to go in first.
She peered inside with a hint of suspicion, but then smiled brightly at me and walked inside.
I lugged her bags across the threshold, kicked the door shut, and set the luggage down. "This is the kitchen."
Duh. Like she wouldn't know that if I hadn't told her. The room had a butcher-block island, two ovens, a double sink, a fridge, and pots and pans hanging from hooks.
Clearing my throat, I nodded toward the hallway. "Guest room's that way."
I headed down the hall with Mara behind me, pointing out the rooms as we went. The doors were all closed. "On the right is Eve's photo studio. Across from that is the bathroom. The other room on the right is Eve and Val's bedroom, which is where I'm staying, and this one on the left is the guest room."
Mara hurried past me to open the door.
"You've got a TV with satellite programming and DVR," I said. "There's also a clock radio with an alarm on the bedside table. This little desk here"---I ran my hand over the smooth wood surface---"has a drawer with notepaper and pens, plus a phone book. You also have a dresser with a big mirror on it, though I'm sure you figured that out on your own."
Yeah, the dresser was kind of hard to miss, being right there in plain sight. What an idiot I'd turned into today. It was her ass's fault. If she didn't have a shapely, enticing rear end, maybe I wouldn't act like such a dope around her.
Mara had stepped inside the room a few inches, but she eyed it with a hint of anxiety.
"Don't worry, nobody else is in the house." I tapped a finger on the phone on the desk. "If you need me, just press one. That rings the office in the guest house, which is where I'll be."
Her wide gaze flew to me. "You're leaving me alone here?"
"Relax, it's perfectly safe. You might not want to look out the window, but nobody will bother you here." I scratched the back of my neck. "Maybe I should hang around for a little while, to help you get settled."
Her tense shoulders sagged. "Oh thank you, Oliver. I'm so grateful there's one person here who isn't a nudist."
I almost winced. Not a nudist? She'd been assuming that because I was wearing clothes right now. If I told her I only dressed to greet new guests, she would panic for sure. Yeah, that was the reason I hadn't corrected her misconception about me. It had nothing to do with the fact I wanted to kiss her.
She inched toward the bed and cautiously settled her fantastic ass onto it. She bounced a little, like she was testing the mattress. "This feels wonderful. Very cushy."
Her breasts jiggled every time she bounced.
My brain went straight to a fantasy of Mara spread out on the bed, naked, moaning and begging me to---
"Oliver?" she said. "Are you all right?"
I coughed into my fist. "Yeah, fine."
The way she kept calling me Oliver made my balls tighten, but what the hell. Let's go with "I'm fine." If
