Page 118 of Cold Mercy

I spin around, ready to snap something back, something that will bruise his ego for at least the next decade. But the words die in my throat.

He grabs the dock with both hands and pulls his entire body up in one clean motion, muscles tightening under his soaked black shirt.

My eyes drop lower, taking in the wet fabric stuck to his abdomen like a second skin, and Jesus Christ. The man doesn’t just have abs, he has sections. More definition than a goddamn anatomy textbook. It should be fucking illegal.

Water pours off him in a steady stream. His hair is plastered to his forehead, droplets sliding down his jaw, tracing the line of his throat, disappearing under the collar of his shirt.

I absolutely freeze while my comeback evaporates, and he notices.

His eyes drag up my body, slow and deliberate, and something in his expression tightens. It’s subtle, but I feel it like a pulse between us.

He stands fully now, chest rising with each breath. That soaked black shirt clings to him so perfectly I really can't look away.

“Something you want to say?” His voice is low, rough, like he already knows he’s caught me looking.

I swallow hard, then turn on my heel and bolt toward the cabin, knowing there is no universe in which I’m letting him see the way my stomach just flipped.

CHAPTER 30

Thomas

We step into the room, still dripping from the lake, and she marches ahead of me with that furious little sway in her hips. The door clicks shut behind us, and the sound seems to flip a switch inside her, because the second she hears it, she lifts her arms and drags the wet white top over her head along with the bikini top

She’s facing away from me.

Thank God. Or maybe fuck God, because the sight nearly puts me on my knees.

Her back is bare, slick with water. Her shoulder blades shift as she breathes, and a single bead of water slides from her hair to her skin, running a slow path down the center of her back. It disappears under the tiny strip of fabric clinging to her hips.

My heartbeat thunders, and my entire body goes rigid. Every rational part of my brain is screaming at me to look away, but it's useless.

She crosses the room to the bathroom and disappears inside for barely five seconds. Long enough to peel off that soaked bikini bottom and wrap herself in a towel, the knot sitting just high enough to expose the top of her chest. Her skin is damp, flushed in a way that hits me right between the ribs. Wet hair clings to her collarbones, and her legs are bare, smooth, fucking glowing.

She finally realizes I’m standing there.

Her eyes hit my face… then drop.

First to my chest, where the wet black shirt is plastered to my skin, outlining every line I try to hide. Then lower, dragging down the ridges of my stomach, and then…Jesus Christ, even lower, where she absolutely should not be looking.

Her breath stutters, and her pupils go wide for a split second before she snaps her gaze away as if she's been burned, and I feel the jolt of her reaction everywhere in my body.

“You’re dripping everywhere,” she mutters, her voice thinner than she wants it to be.

I run a hand back through my hair, water dripping down my neck. Her eyes follow the path like she can’t help it.

“You dragged me in,” I murmur. “Pretty sure this mess is on you.”

I hear the barest stutter in her breath.

“You should get changed,” she fires back, trying to sound unaffected. “Before you ruin the floor.”

I step closer, just a few inches. Her pulse kicks in her throat, her fingers tightening around the towel knot like it’s her last defense.

“What’s the point?” I say, voice low, “When you’re standing here looking like that?”

She freezes, and her chest rises sharply under the towel.

“Reed,” she warns, but it comes out unsteady, “don’t start.”