“Sorry,” she whispered. “As s-soon as we’re not hiding from squatters and z-zombies, we need to hang a c-cowbell around your neck. If you u-use it in one of your videos, it’ll be the hottest spring a-accessory ever.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe you c-can make a cowbell thong?”
When he closed the door again, she fumbled for her phone, located the flashlight app, and managed to illuminate their temporary hideout with a few shaky swipes.
“Anyway,” he said, the word barely audible despite its aggrieved emphasis, “the door to the employee parking spaces was open. It apparently hasn’t ever been forced, so it still locks. It’s sturdy enough for our purposes. We can stay here while you dry off and get dressed again. Plus…”
With a flourish, he produced a jumbled pile of what appeared to be tablecloths.
Plucking a heap of fabric free from the stack, he flapped his jacquard offering proudly in front of her. “These were squirreled away in a low, mostly-hidden shelf in the stock room. They should make decent makeshift blankets for you, and I shook off the dust outside, so they’re ready to be used.”
Not all the dust, clearly.
“Thank—” Coughing noiselessly was more difficult than she’d have imagined. “Thank y-you, Max.”
His brows pinched, and he patted her back until she could breathe normally again. “Don’t thank me yet. Thank me after I strip you down and get you warm and dry and into a new set of those…” He flicked a hand at her waterlogged coveralls. “Whatever those are. Other thanunfortunate.”
“S-says the dude with the m-macramé undies.”
“That wasn’t a no, Edie.” For all its quietness, his voice had gone low. Gravelly.
She’d never been especially modest, but right now in particular, she couldn’t locate even a tiny sliver of a fuck about him seeing her naked. Her hands were shaking too hard to undress quickly, and the sooner she defrosted, the better.
When she didn’t respond out loud, his palms cupped her shoulders. “If you don’t want me to undress you, tell me.”
“It’s fine.” Exhausted, she let herself slump in his grasp. “Go to t-town, vampire boy. Enjoy the sh-show.”
Due to her current lack of fine motor control, her attempt at a breezy, flirty wink ended as a sort of leering squint. With both eyes.
Sighing, she allowed her lids to simply drift shut. Allowed him to fix things, even though she’d been fixing her problems entirely on her own for two decades and counting.
“Hardly a boy,” he groused under his breath before getting to work.
10
With a metallic purr, the zipper of Edie’s coveralls whipped open. Max’s careful hands tugged her arms free of the clinging sleeves and pushed the heavy fabric down her icy legs, along with her underwear. He removed her sneakers and socks, supporting her with a steady grip on her hip as he guided her feet out of the pile of sodden clothing and onto a dry, soft tablecloth.
She hummed. “If you’re n-not a boy, how o-oldareyou, th-then?”
Another grumble, this one wordless.
Her arms were up and her tank top gone before she drew another breath. The sports bra took him longer, but once he finally finessed it over her head, she was entirely naked.
In a Pottery Barn. In front of her Neighbor Formerly Known as Chad.
The realization barely had a chance to flutter through her dazed thoughts before she found herself cocooned in another tablecloth and vigorously rubbed dry. Her scalp, her neck, her back, her arms. Her palms. Between her fingers.
“I have no body heat to share,” he muttered. “Friction warmthis all I can offer, which means I can’t be as gentle as I’d like.” A frustrated sound escaped him, and he draped yet another tablecloth over her now-dry shoulders. “You’re bruised everywhere, Edie. Dammit.”
He was working on her legs now, kneeling at her feet as he patted away the moisture behind her knees and chafed heat and life back into her lower limbs. Her fingertips stretched out before her, then burrowed into his icy hair and combed through the tangled strands soothingly.
“Max.” When she found his temples, she rubbed them clumsily with the prickling pads of her thumbs. “It’s o-okay.”
He grunted, unappeased. “This has to be hurting you.”
It did hurt. But it was necessary.
In lieu of a verbal response, she kept stroking his hair back from his face, carding it with her fingers. Gently, so she wouldn’t tug at any knots.
An odd sound rumbled from his throat. “Do you want me to…”
