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“Yes. Do whatever you need. Just get it off me.” My last five words correspond with the fracturing of stitches on my forty-dollar undershirt.
The price tag alone should have told me I was an idiot. I merely hated that none of my regular clothes fit me within a month of recovery. I know the reason. I ate out of boredom, then left my home gym the instant my shoulder started niggling, but it is easier to deny the truth than face it head on.
Tonight isn’t giving me any other option, though.
I’m out of shape, which hopefully assures Henley that nothing happening right now is a ploy. I’m mortified that this is anyone’s introduction to my body, much less someone with a body as tight and fit as hers.
Henley loosens the rigid material so well that she slips it up my neck before slowly easing it over my head. “We’re almost there. Just your man bun to go.”
I could laugh at her wittiness if I weren’t so horrified.
“And… you’re…”—another grunt—“free!”
I’m so relieved I jump up without considering how close Henley stands. I bump her chest with my still-locked shoulder, sending her flying backward.
Not thinking, I band my good arm around her back and tug her into me before she topples into the bathtub. “Whoa, careful.”
The fringed edge of her jeans tickling the fine hairs splayed above my groin reminds me that I’m naked, not to mention Henley’s quick inhalation of air when my dick brushes her thigh.
“Shit. Sorry.”
“Don’t let me go,” she whispers on a plea when I try to back away. “I’m not exactly trusting of my legs right now.”
As her cheeks redden to the color of beets, I re-firm my grip before drinking in the girly freckles on her face, hopeful they’ll stop my body from reacting to her sweet honeysuckle scent. They’re faint and dotted across the bridge of her nose and high on her cheekbones, adding to her roused coloring. Her almond-shaped eyes, her plump lips, and the perfect symmetry of her face reveal she will age well no matter her struggles. She is beautiful, but even if I were looking for something more, which I am not, she is far too young for me.
“I can’t hold you much longer,” I announce, hating the weakness the assault forced on me.
When Caroline and I first started dating, I could hold her against a wall and ravish her for hours.
Now I can barely hold my arm above my head for five minutes.
“Okay,” Henley murmurs as her eyes bounce between mine. “Okay,” she whispers again while slowly inching back.
Respectfully, she keeps her eyes on my face before she twists to face the door.
For the first time in ten minutes, I see the humor in the situation when she murmurs, “It’s lucky I didn’t take you up on your offer of a hotel room. You could have been stuck for hours.”
Unease hiccups through my heartbeat when a girly squeal leaves the bathroom. Unlike earlier when my arm was stuck in the air and my pants were kicked too far across the room to contemplate yanking them on, this groan isn’t filled with agony. Frustration, yes, but I doubt its owner is contemplating a lengthy stint in rehab to end a brutal cycle of pain.
If it weren’t for the bottle of scotch Ms. Mitchell gifted me on her last day, the pain rocketing through my shoulder would have set my recovery back days.
Mercifully, alcohol is almost every agent’s crutch, so I can use it as freely as I like—and the remembrance saw me guzzling half the bottle in under two hours.
I wasn’t planning to get drunk, but when you’re hiding in your room to save face, one nip soon turns into ten.
Fortunately, I don’t lose my smarts when tipsy. Instead of racing into the bathroom to save Henley when she squeals for the second time, I press my ear to the door and ask, “Everything okay?”
Really, douche canoe? She’s screamed twice. One more and your neighbors will call in backup.
It’s happened before. More than once.
A reminder of the final time cuts through me like a knife.
After shaking my head to rid it of negative thoughts, I tilt nearer to the bathroom door and await Henley’s reply. She delivers it two seconds later. “It’s the water. It keeps going cold.”
“The faucet is finicky. You need to turn it all the way to hot before slowly notching it back at a thirty-degree incline, but don’t increase the pressure past half or it’ll never warm up.”
“What?” Henley asks, as confused as me. They don’t stem from the same thing, but there is no doubt we’re as confused as each other.
“The faucet. Only pull it out partway—”
“Can you show me? I’m decent… for the most part.”
My body’s response to the last half of her sentence has me immediately shaking my head. I rarely have an issue keeping a rational mind, even when my veins are tainted with liquor, but something about this woman has me acting recklessly. The thoughts in my head this evening are insane. I’ve never experienced anything like this before, not even while courting Caroline, and the admittance of that makes matters worse.
