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It sounds as if she’s out of the tub now.
Shame.
The bathroom door cracks open. “Close your eyes.”
I hesitate a moment before taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
“It’s a little late for a bath, don’t you think? Figured you’d have done that once I left.”
Soft footfalls sound across the space as I become hyperaware just how many square feet this room is. Vanilla and the scent of something tropical tickle my nose, and then I hear Kate’s voice near enough that I might be able to reach out and touch her.
“If you’re going to dictate when I take my baths, we may have a problem.”
That familiar twitch jerks the corner of my lips. It’s been happening a lot around her—the smiling.
“I hope it’s okay that I hung some of my clothes in the closet.”
My heart stutters a beat at the thought of Kate sifting through my things. Does she think I’m as dull as the rest of my friends do? With my neatly hung and pressed shirts and suits, I’d guess she probably does.
The distinctplopof a wet towel hitting the floor has my cock jolting to life again.
“Of course,” I voice a touch too tightly. “You’re welcome to anything here.”
I keep my eyes glued shut as she rustles through what sounds like clothing. When the bed dips with her weight, I very shamelessly wonder if she wears underwear to bed.
“You can open your eyes now,” Kate says quietly.
When I blink them open, a thin gray T-shirt drapes over her shoulders and pools in her lap where she sits cross-legged just a couple feet away.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” I manage to say over the lump in my throat. And damn if that blush doesn’t compliment the fucking thing.
“I’m sorry. I must have left my sleep clothes.” She pauses before gifting me an impish smile. “Youdidsay I could help myself.”
Platonic and unavailable, I remind myself. “I did, didn’t I?”
I hold my gaze above the level of her bare legs and focus instead on the almost feline appearance of her eyes, and the fullness of her upper lip, which forms a perfect cupid’s bow.
The smoothness of her face is interrupted by a speckling of light scars just beneath her cheekbones that I hadn’t noticed before now.
She glances at her toes, where her fingers absently play.
“They’re acne scars,” she says. “They used to be deep and horrible. I was even teased mercilessly as a teen, but when Mom married Henry, they sent me to a dermatologist who was able to laser them.”
I grimace. “That sounds painful.”
“It wasn’t fun, but my mother is all about appearances.” Running the tip of her finger across the spots, she shrugs. “At least it helped with the purple discoloration. Now they’re easy to cover with a little makeup.”
I don’t tell her this, but she doesn’t even need it.
“I got made fun of a lot as a kid, too,” I tell her. Her deep brown eyes widen. “Oh, yeah. This body wasn’t always the immaculate cut you know it to be.”
Kate laughs while tossing a pillow at me.
“Being the heaviest kid in my class made for a lot of creative nicknames.” I spare her the rest, not caring to dredge up the past.
Dark lines from her wet hair reveal themselves when she yanks the front of my shirt over her knees and rests her chin there.
“That’s not very nice,” she mumbles.
