Grandpa's Young Nanny Craves His Touch

Hank Thompson had always prided himself on being the sturdy oak in a forest of chaos. At 68, widowed for five years after losing his wife to a sudden heart attack, he was raising his two rambunctious grandkids—eight-year-old twins, Max and Lily—while their parents jetted off on some endless "career sabbatical" in Europe. The house was a zoo, and Hank's bad knee from his construction days wasn't helping. So, when the agency sent over Mia Reynolds, a 22-year-old college senior studying early childhood education, he figured it was a godsend. Or so he thought until she walked through the door.

Mia was a pint-sized bombshell, all five-foot-four of bubbly energy wrapped in cutoff denim shorts that hugged her perky ass like a second skin and a cropped tank top that left her toned midriff bare. Her long auburn hair bounced in a ponytail, and her green eyes sparkled with mischief as she knelt to the kids' level, instantly winning them over with promises of fort-building and cookie-baking marathons. "Call me Mia! We're gonna have the best summer ever!" she chirped, her voice like fizzy soda.

Hank watched from the kitchen doorway, coffee mug frozen halfway to his lips. Damn, she was young. Too young? Nah, legal as hell, and those shorts... Jesus. He cleared his throat, extending a callused hand. "Hank. Welcome aboard. Live-in gig means the guest room's yours. Kids eat at six sharp."

She shook his hand, her grip firm but her smile pure flirtation. "Ooh, bossy already? I like a man who knows his way around a schedule." The twins dragged her off to play, but not before she shot him a wink that hit him like a shot of whiskey.

Instant tension crackled from day one. Mia's "uniform" was a parade of skimpy outfits—tiny yoga pants that clung to her camel toe during morning stretches in the living room, bikini tops when she hosed down the kids in the backyard, and those godforsaken sleep shorts that rode up her thighs at bedtime story hour. Hank, with his salt-and-pepper beard, broad shoulders still packed with muscle from decades of manual labor, and that rugged silver-fox vibe, caught her staring at his thick forearms and the way his flannel shirts strained over his chest.