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She pushed a lock of his hair off his forehead. The rainwater darkened it from its golden color to a slick of dark brown that reminded Maggie of a different man. “Going for a hike, getting caught in a downpour, even twisting my ankle. Then coming back to a hotel for refuge and having to share a room. A room with a single bed.” Maggie pointed to the bed in the center of the room. “Classic tropes, Dean.”
“Trope.”
“A recurring theme or motif. In this case, reoccurring across multiple novels in a genre.”
“And what would my role be in this trope?” Dean asked, the corners of his green eyes crinkling with his smile.
“Obviously to fall adoringly at my feet as you confess your love.” Maggie tilted her head. “It seems you’re already at my feet.”
“Look at that. I guess I am.” Dean stood up. “We can wring as much water out of our clothes as possible, take a warm shower,” he eyed her foot, “or a bath, and order room service.”
Dean reached one hand over his head and pulled off his long-sleeved shirt and his undershirt. His muscles rippled in the low light from the floor lamp. Dean, shirtless, looked like a Greek statue. Eight defined bumps ridged the muscles along his stomach and a deep slanted V shape disappeared under the waistband of his pants. His skin was a sun gold everywhere except for his dark nipples, a tan Maggie knew came from spending every second he could shirtless.
Dean’s hands went to his belt and undid the buckle, letting the leather rest in the loops. He popped the button on the front and his pants slipped a few inches lower. Dean helped them the rest of the way until they hit the floor with a wet slap. He straightened, a pair of dark boxer briefs plastered to his body. Romance novel Maggie would have snuck a peek at the front of Dean’s underwear. Real-life Maggie kept her eyes above the belly button. The last time he’d stripped in front of her, she had run away and hid. At least she was making progress. Although she couldn’t exactly run very far with a swollen ankle.
“Your turn,” Dean said. “Give me your clothes and I’ll wring as much out as I can while you snag a—” He looked down at her foot again. “Bath.”
“Don’t look,” Maggie said.
“Don’t worry about me, Babs.”
She dropped his soggy sweatshirt with a wet thud and then peeled off her shirt. Sitting on the dresser made removing her pants difficult. Maggie got one side of the waistband down and then almost fell off the edge of the dresser. She righted herself, but not before her ankle slammed into the solid wood, and she let out a pained hiss.
Two large hands steadied her hips.
“Let me help.”
Big fingers dipped into the stretchy purple fabric. Dean’s skin was soft and tickled against her and Maggie sucked in a breath, determined not to giggle. With Dean tugging her pants down, Maggie used her arms to help shift her weight. The wet spandex clung to her thighs and Dean had to adjust his grip, his thumbs skating across the cold skin of her legs. Her old cotton leggings wouldn’t have given her this much trouble. When they were dry, her pants felt slick under her hands, but soaking wet they stuck to her like tacky peanut butter. Dean went slow, inch by slow inch, pulling the leggings over her wrapped ankle and tossing them in the pile of both their clothes.
Maggie had always assumed that if she were to sit in front of Dean in her underwear, all her shivering would have been lust-induced. She had been wrong. The shivers wracking her body were definitely a product of the frigid temperatures in the hotel room. Dean’s hands were warm on her skin, but his touch hadn’t produced the expected tingles she had dreamed of. She blamed her lack of response on her sprained ankle and the beginning stages of hypothermia.
Dean stood and disappeared into the attached bathroom. Maggie heard the pipes groan as the water started. Against her better judgment, she slid off the surface of the bureau and tried to hobble the short distance to the bathroom. If she moved at the speed of a glacier, and only put weight on the outside edge of her heel, then she could move. The promise of pain made her lock her knee as well, and when Dean came back out of the bathroom, she was sure she looked like an off-balance stool tipping its way across the floor.
“I was coming to get you.” Dean scooped her up.
With a shriek at the sudden movement, Maggie wrapped her arms around his thick neck.
“I was walking just fine,” she said and stuck her nose into the air.
“You didn’t mind me carrying you on the trail.”
Maggie was aware of every place their skin brushed together. She still wore her sports bra and underwear, and Dean had his boxer briefs on. They were about as dressed as they might have been at a pool, but it had been years since they’d gone swimming together. Even longer since they’d played any sort of games that would have put their naked bodies into incidental contact.
“We weren’t half naked then,” Maggie said.
Dean set her down on the closed lid of the toilet and then backed out of the bathroom. Maggie peeled the rest of her clothes off and levered herself into the tub. The water was heavenly on her freezing body. Hot enough to turn her pink, but not enough to scald her skin from her bones. She dipped her head back and let her hair fan out around her, slicking it away from her face as she reached for the tiny bottle of complimentary 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner.
What was she doing? She was naked in a bathtub while the man she’d loved forever stood just outside the door wearing nothing but his underwear. The same man who she’d been fake dating for a month now and who just offered to extend their agreement. The same one who carried her down a mountain, bandaged her foot, and stripped her to her underwear before carrying her to a warm bath. And she was in here washing her hair.
Her favorite romance heroines would roll over in the pages of their books, watching her. She hadn’t batted her eyelashes. She hadn’t chewed on her lower lip. She hadn’t even ogled him. Dean had stripped down to his briefs, and she’d looked away. On purpose. He’d held her in his arms on the soggy mountain path, and she’d been thinking about how her clothes stuck to her like dry ice. They’d booked a single room with one undersized bed, and Maggie worried about when the road home would open back up. He’d said he loved her, and she hadn’t jumped him.
Maggie rinsed the suds out of her long hair and tried to sit up. It was no easy feat while also trying to keep her foot and ankle propped on the tub’s edge.
“You don’t come out the same after falling in love.” Maggie repeated Dean’s words back to herself. Hadn’t she though?
Maggie had fallen in love with Dean as a child. Now, as an adult, she was no stranger to the technicalities of sex, but her fantasies about Dean hadn’t changed. She imagined him holding her hand. She imagined chaste kisses pressed to her cheeks and lips. She imagined whispering, ‘I love you,’ while sharing secret smiles and sweet laughter. She imagined sitting hip to hip while throwing corn to the ducks at the park. Her dreams of Dean were, by definition, childish. They were the dreams she’d conjured in elementary and middle school. They hadn’t grown or changed in the last twenty years.
Maggie didn’t write scenes like that. She didn’t write books like that. She also didn’t read them. She preferred books with passion and heat and sexual tension that left her own legs shaking. Could that be the reason everything felt so wrong? She’d built her whole idea of romance off two things: her feelings for Dean and the novels she banded around herself like armor. She was an expert in her field. What if she’d been wrong? Who would she be if she’d been wrong?
