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Really? ‘I’m not …’
‘I can’t think of a better way to work the kinks out.’ He rolled his shoulders.
‘Well, I guess …’ She certainly had kinks to spare.
‘Great.’ He stood to undo his shorts. ‘You mind if I wear my pants? I’m too knackered to go hunt up my trunks.’ He ripped open his flies to reveal loose white cotton boxers, which would probably be a lot more revealing once wet than the stretchy black cotton ones he’d been wearing at the waterfall.
‘Fine, as long as the essential bits are covered. I’m going to get my swimsuit on.’ She sent him a nonchalant wave that didn’t feel all that nonchalant once she’d reached the safety of her room and struggled out of her dusty hiking gear.
Maybe sharing a hot tub with Luke wasn’t such a great idea, she thought, recalling the pornographic vision she’d had of him on her first morning in the cabin.
No need to panic. You have excellent impulse control.
Plus, they’d just shared a tent for a whole night with no funny business occurring. And she couldn’t think of a better way to work out all the aches and pains from their kayaking adventure.
After a quick shower to wash the trail dust off, though, she made the mistake of wiping the steam off the bathroom’s mirrored wall, giving herself a full-frontal view of her naked body. And all its tiny imperfections. Imperfections accumulated over the past sixteen years, which in the harsh fluorescent light suddenly didn’t look so tiny.
When had the shallow creases around her eyes begun to morph into a road map of Canada? Or the slight thickening at her waist gotten so pronounced? And when had her breasts lost the last vestiges of their twenty-something perkiness—no matter how much she arched her back?
Hello, attack of the fifty-foot cleavage.
She touched her belly, examining the three silvery two-centimetre long marks she had acquired while comfort eating herself into a coma before Aldo’s birth. Did the stretch marks make the diamanté stud she still wore in her belly piercing look more cougar-ish than cool?
She leaned into the mirror. And what about all her newly acquired war wounds? The bruise on her chin, the scratch across her cheek, the tan lines on her arms and thighs, and the patch of reddened skin on the bridge of her nose, which would be peeling by tomorrow.
She reached for her make-up case, then hesitated.
Who cares what he thinks of your perfectly normal, thirty-six-year-old woman’s body?
Step away from the concealer.
Bypassing her bikini—what was I thinking packing that?—she dug out the plain black one-piece she’d worn on her last trip to Disney World with Aldo a year ago. After brushing her hand through her hair, which had begun to frizz at the edges, she declared herself good to go.
Sucking in her belly as she stepped onto the deck, just a bit, her breath gushed out when she spotted Luke. With his arms stretched out across the cedar lip of the tub, the water frothing under his sternum and his head tipped back, he appeared to be completely oblivious to her grand entrance.
Unlike Dream Luke, who had been smooth and tanned and oiled, Real Luke clearly didn’t wax his chest, the curls of dark hair fanning out across his nipples. But the shine of sweat and steam defining the pronounced muscles and the wisps that tapered into a thin line below the water managed to look a lot more earthy and inviting.
Two glasses stood beside a chilled bottle of wine in a wooden bucket next to the tub.
Nectar of the gods … And women on the verge of sharing a hot tub with the sexy ex they absolutely do not want to have sex with.
‘They delivered dinner already?’ she said.
His head lifted, and she wondered if she’d woken him up. His eyelids were at half mast as he squinted at her, and she remembered he had always been a bit myopic. He must wear contacts now, because she hadn’t seen him wearing his glasses.
‘Yeah, they brought it about twenty minutes ago. It can be reheated. Where have you been? I’m about to dissolve.’
Really? You look pretty solid to me.
‘I was having a shower. After a night sleeping rough, I didn’t want to pollute the hot tub with my grunginess.’ She noticed the damp curls of hair flattened on one side of his head, but dry at the scalp. ‘Something that obviously didn’t bother you.’
She padded across the boards of the deck. Luke remained riveted on her progress the whole way, making her feel like a catwalk model at London Fashion Week, except about a foot shorter and with love handles.
Stop stressing. You look great. And you don’t want to attract Luke.
‘I had a swim this morning in the lake,’ he said. ‘Before you woke up. I’m not as grungy as you.’
He had? She really had slept like the dead.
