Count On Me

Part Sixty

"I'm fine, you think I'm about to collapse?"

He ran his hand to the small of her back, safe zone, "anyone else would."

Lizzie shrugged, "I feel quite calm about it all, surprisingly. I mean I've paid a penance for a thousand people's guilt over the years. Don't you agree?"

He cocked his head to one side, "I do. But I can't quite believe that you have got there today...without copious amounts of wine...and my reassurances."

She gave him a sarcastically sad look, "feeling like you're redundant?"

Did he? He didn't get off on her torment, but he couldn't deny that he liked being her rock, her support...it was just something that he could give back to her, she had given him so much.

"I don't want to HAVE to be there for you, but I like being there for you."

Leaning forward, she planted her lips on his, "I love that about you, Oscar Wicker. You are too good to me."

He waggled his eyebrows, "I'm wearing you down, Miss Breen."

She gave him a nod, accompanied by a knowing look, "you are definitely trying!"

Pulling herself to her feet, she glanced down at him, "I'm hungry, and I know that munchkin will be too. Need dinner soon."

He watched her saunter along the pool edge, and the reaction of Nate to the suggestion of food. Within moments they were both wrapped in robes, and he was about to be left behind.

"You sure you want to go to the restaurant?"

Lizzie was drying her hair with the hotel hairdryer when Oscar emerged from the bathroom, a towel around his waist. His muscular chest gleaming with the sheen of water that he hadn't fully dried.

"I'm not drying my hair to order room service...plus it'll get Nate away from the TV."

Oscar leaned around the door to see his son flat out on the sofa watching the TV.

"He loves Tom and Jerry."

She chuckled, turning the hairdryer back on, "you're right. And I do police things."

Moving behind her, he whispered at her ear, "now I'm adding that to the hot list..." He pretended to write on an invisible pad, "get Lizzie dressed as a police woman."

She rolled her eyes and finished brushing out her hair, "you have a one track mind, Mr Wicker."

He chuckled, causing goose bumps to erupt all over her body, "around you, only you."

Lizzie had dressed deliberately in her tight jeans and a low cut top, she had a few tricks up her sleeve, and now that she knew what she wanted, she had a plan...and that was to tease him, make him realise how perfect they were for each other.

She bent over her bag in what she hoped was a provocative manner a few more times than was healthy, and brushed against him, each time far more elaborately than was necessary. But for each little tease, she was rewarded b y an ever growing tent in his towel as he struggled to deal with her.

When she deliberately brushed past him, he grabbed her and pulled her against his chest, "Miss Breen, just what do you think you are doing to me?"

She gave him an innocent flutter of the eyelashes, "I don't know what you mean!"

He pushed his hips into her, "think I need another shower, cold this time."

She gave a coquettish giggle, "such a lack of willpower."