Chapter Nine

      ‘What now?’ I sighed. I grabbed my mug and watched him appraise me with that sharp stare. Why did I still feel naked?

      ‘That is your sump pump, Farrell.’

      ‘Oh.’ To be honest, I had no idea I had a sump pump.

      ‘It’s on a battery backup in case of …’ Coop waved his hands around. ‘This.’

      ‘Ah,’ I said.

      Brilliant. One word answers, dingbat.

      I listened to the infernal beeping for another moment and tried not to squirm as he studied me, that mysterious twist of a smile on his sensual lips. Coop crossed his arms and there was a Celtic cross, a feather that might or might not be a raven or a crow, a swatch of blue and … he crossed them the other way and there was the hint of a scaled tail. A mermaid?

      When I took a shuddery breath and simply could not stand the beep-beep-beeeeeeep anymore I blurted, ‘My God, how do I make it stop?’

      He chuckled, gave me a decisive nod and took my hand. ‘Let’s start by going in your basement where the sump pump lives.’

      ‘Yes, let’s,’ I echoed, rattled by his strong hand on my wrist. When he held my arm, though, I saw more of that tail and yes, it had to be a mermaid. Or a very curvy fish.

      ‘It’s a mermaid,’ he said, following my gaze.

      ‘Oh, I didn’t – I wasn’t –’ I shook my head and we took my very steep, wooden, horror-movie-esque basement steps slowly.

      ‘Have you been down here yet?’

      ‘No,’ I admitted. ‘I have a basement phobia.’

      ‘Spiders?’

      ‘Nope. Just basements.’

      Another smoky laugh and then he was tugging me into the corner by the washbasin and the laundry area.

      He squatted down and I tried very hard not to study the firm line of his ass and thighs in his dark blue work pants. Or the way his work boots made my body flash all hot like and needy. Or how the small swatch of skin I could see and the slice of boxer short waistband was visible, or how any of that made my breasts feel tender and my mind sizzle like I’d been electrocuted.

      I was learning about my sump pump. Sump. Pump. And that was all.

      ‘This red light,’ he said, pointing.

      I nodded. Thankful, suddenly, for the flood of sunlight from the small window high over the washbasin. I realised without it we’d be down here in the darkness – okay, murky daytime ‘darkness’ but darkness nonetheless.

      ‘Yes?’

      ‘If it goes off on a glitch, you push it for one second. Once it stops beeping you move your finger.’

      ‘Got it. But this isn’t a glitch. This is an actual outage so …’

      ‘So you do this,’ he said. ‘You push the button down and count to five.’ He pushed his finger to the button near the red light and looked up at me. ‘One … Two …’ On two I blanked out because I was watching the plump invitation of his lips and yes, my eyes had darted back to that lovely strip of exposed skin and his ass. Oh, man, the man had an ass.

      ‘Are you counting?’

      ‘Yes,’ I whispered.

      ‘What number are we on?’

      I blinked, took a step back, right into a clothesline strung from the rafters and I promptly freaked the hell out and started waving my arms, dancing in place, screeching – convinced I’d backed up into the world’s largest spider web.