She immediately dropped the towel, bent over to pick it up, and smacked her head on the counter. “Ow!”
Good lord almighty. “Hold still. Let me get that for you.” He bent down to get the towel and as he did, she leaned forward, and one of those nipples scraped against his arm. His cock stiffened in response. It had been a while since he’d taken a woman to bed, and his body was definitely responding positively to this strange but attractive girl.
“Sorry,” she said, rubbing her forehead. “I guess I should point out I’m a bit of a klutz.”
Bit of was probably an understatement. “S’all right. Do you need to sit down?”
“Nah.” She blinked several times. “My scarf okay? You didn’t have to cut it, did you?”
Since she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to do so, he draped the towel around her shoulders, feeling oddly protective of her. “Your scarf is fine. Why are you wet?”
“Me? Oh.” She bit her lip and gave him a sheepish look. “So I was reading online that you should use soap and water on a stuck door, and I tried that but I ended up getting more on myself than on the door.” Her mouth flattened. “Then I tried to clean it up and made an even bigger mess. The soap they use here is downright slippery.”
“I’ve heard that about soap,” he said dryly. “Perhaps you should put in a word with your employer about purchasing less . . . slippery soap.” And he’d have to thank Gretchen for putting her employee in a thin white T-shirt, though the jeans were throwing him off. It didn’t seem like a typical servant uniform.
“My employer?” She giggled. “I do tech support. My employer doesn’t know the first thing about soap.”
Ah. Realization dawned. “Taylor?”
“How do you know my name?”
“Wild guess.” He found himself grinning down at her. “My name is Loch. I believe we’re supposed to be spending time together.” He should have been appalled, he really should have. The woman was clearly a mess . . . but she was a mess with a magnificent set of tits and rather nice eyes. He’d wager that there were other parts of her that were equally nice, and he was looking forward to seeing them.
Those nice eyes fixed on his face, and then traveled down his chest and then his legs. “Mamma mia. What are they feeding you guys in Europe?”
His lips twitched with amusement. “Goat cheese and baguettes?”
“Damn,” she breathed. Her gaze went up to his face and then back down his body again. “You are eating a lot of goat cheese, then. You’re like Thor. I mean, not the mythology one but the Marvel Comics one. The hot blond Chris Hemsworth one. Though I think you’re definitely more Avengers Thor than Dark World Thor.”
“What?”
“Nothing.” She blinked rapidly again and stared at his chest. “Definitely Avengers Thor.”
He laughed. All right, if he was going to have a woman thrown at him, at least she was amusing. “I’m starting to think you hit your head harder than you realize.”
“Nah, I’m always like this.” She gave him an apologetic smile and then pointed at the door. “I don’t mean to be a party pooper, but it’d probably be bad if that thing shut again and we were both on this side.”
“Right. Shall we go find our hostess, then?”
“Oh, gosh, yeah. Gretchen’s probably worried I’m busy destroying some priceless vases or something.”
He could see that. Loch offered her his arm, just because she seemed a bit unsteady on her legs still. Plus, she’d hit her head twice.
She clutched at his arm and then furtively squeezed his muscles. “Oh, man.”
And he couldn’t help but laugh at that, too.
“Did you realize you’re missing a shoe?” she pointed out as they left the bathroom.
“Ah. Right. It has chewing gum on it and I couldn’t find a servant to take care of it for me.” He released her arm and moved forward, scooping up his loafer.
“You want me to get it for you? Least I can do,” she said.
“I really don’t think—”
Too late. She took the shoe from his hand and immediately got gum on her fingers. He watched her small, cute nose wrinkle, and she tried to pull the gum off, only to spread it more on her fingers.
“I should probably go back to the bathroom and get rid of this,” she said faintly.
“Just do me a favor and don’t shut the door.”
***
Oh, dear god, Gretchen was trying to hook her up with Adonis. She didn’t know whether to thank her friend or curse her. Adonis was so not in Taylor’s league. She was more of a nerdy-sidekick’s-romantic-interest kind of girl. Her type was more Spider-Man than Thor.
This guy? He was definitely godlike.
She couldn’t stop staring at him as they sat down with Gretchen in one of the manor’s luxurious studies. He had a cup of coffee in his hands, and man, they were such big hands. Enormous, tanned ones with big fingers. He probably wouldn’t be very good at toggling buttons in Excelsior because the game’s on-screen buttons were close together and were more suited to smaller fingers. But like . . . who cared? Those were some amazing, beautiful hands.
His hair was incredible, too. It was tawny colored, thick and wavy and brushed against the collar of his shirt. It shouldn’t have worked for him, and if his hair was thin, it’d have just looked stringy. As it was, he looked like a dang movie star. Thor, her brain reminded her. Definitely Thor-like. Plus he was tall and built, and oh my goodness, just looked like no man she’d ever seen before in her life. Couple that with the sexy lilt in his accent? She was pretty sure she’d be shucking her Batman panties at him if he asked.