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rub.”
    In the telltale silence that followed, Juliet’s face burned. The front door was open, they were here during regular shop hours, yet still it sounded as if she and Noah had walked in on something very private indeed.
    “Rub harder.”
    At the second low growl of command emanating from the hallway, Juliet shuffled in retreat, only to be stopped by the warm wall of Noah’s body. She wobbled, and his hard forearm clamped across her hips to steady her.
    Oh, God, she thought, swamped by the sudden awareness of his heat, his height, the maleness of the muscles cradling her. It was happening to her again, just like it had been happening since she’d seen him naked in her pool. That deep, undeniable consciousness that she was a woman and he was a man.
    A hard, virile man.
    “Damn it, Cassandra, I said rub harder.”
    Juliet jolted in Noah’s arms, trying to get away from her own response and the images the disembodied voices were painting in her head. With a hard swallow, she pulled free of the strong arm holding her.
    “I think we should go,” she whispered, darting a quick look at him. “And come back later.” After a cold shower or something.
    “What?” Noah’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
    Another “Rub harder,” echoed in the room, turning up the heat on her face.
    Noah gave a sudden grin, as if now he could see the story playing out in her imagination. “Juliet Weston. Get your mind out of the gutter.” Still grinning, he returned to the front door, where he grasped the string of bells hanging from the handle. At his tug, they rang out.
    From the hall, the woman’s voice instantly responded. “Be with you in half a second,” she called out.
    “Thanks a lot.” The unseen man groused. “It might take a little longer than that.”
    The woman laughed, and from his renewed place beside Juliet, Noah did, too. For her part, the situation seemed serious. Last night her shell had crumbled, freeing at least one thing she would rather have stayed safely under wraps. Before now, her mind had never wandered into the gutter!
    Clearly she needed another focus in her life besides Noah.
    On that thought, Cassandra came hurrying around a corner. “Juliet!” Her big blue eyes widening, she stopped short and her fall of rippling brown hair settled about her shoulders. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”
    “We didn’t have anything else going on today,” Juliet said.
    The other woman came closer. “And you wanted to make sure you hadn’t dreamed it all up?”
    “Something like that.”
    “I know I wondered,” Cassandra said. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sleeveless cotton hoodie sweater that she had surely knit herself. “You can’t imagine the jump my heart gave when you walked in last night and I glimpsed another pair of Nikki’s eyes looking back at me.”
    It had been a jolt for Juliet, too. But it had taken a naked Noah to bring her completely awake. She carefully kept her gaze away from him now. “We just saw Nikki at the fish place next door. They’re still the same blue and green as mine.”
    Cassandra nodded, a smile playing around her full mouth. “The same. Though I think I see something of myself in you, too.”
    “Yes? Well . . .” Juliet hesitated. “I hope we’re not interrupting.”
    “No, no. Gabe and I are rewallpapering the bathroom. It’s going to look so cute when we’re done.”
    “Cute?” A dark-haired, dark-eyed man came around the corner. He was very lean and his hair was scruffy. It looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days and his whiskers only made his scowl appear fiercer. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
    Cassandra lowered her voice and leaned toward Juliet and Noah. “I think he’s color-blind. I told him the pale blue and yellow stripes are black and silver—he’s a Raiders fan and it seemed to make him happy.”
    Juliet didn’t think the whiskered man would ever be happy, even with a bathroom inspired by his favorite football team.