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Rocking back on his heels, he cackles. “Tell me there are pictures.”
“Oh, there are pictures, all right. I’m pretty sure Janie has video too. Play your cards right, and maybe she’ll share them.”
Still grinning, he runs a washcloth under the tap, soaping it up before he goes after the lipstick marring his jaw and forehead.
Catching sight of a few pink smears he probably can’t see, I step into the room, take another washcloth from the rack, and reach around Wade to get it wet. After the last two days, I’ve gotten so used to intentionally touching when we have an audience, I don’t even think about the fact that my hand is pressed to the bare skin of his side until I look up and find him watching me in the mirror.
“Sorry,” I breathe out, pulling my hand free. Suddenly, the laughter is gone, leaving only the awareness of how small this room is and how close we’re standing.
“There’s some on your neck and back too… If you want me to get them.”
He nods, and I try to focus on wiping away the evidence of some other woman on him, but my gaze keeps slipping back to the mirror. To the too-blue eyes still watching mine, impossible to read.
I want to say something. Break the silence. But that easy conversation between us feels further out of reach as the seconds stretch.
“There, you’re all cleaned up,” I finally manage, still clutching the washcloth.
Wade turns, his big body swallowing up the space in the small bathroom in a way it hadn’t when his back was turned. He reaches for a bit of my hair like he did at the gas station—God, was that only yesterday?—and wraps it around his finger before smoothing it back over my ear.
The air feels thin, warm.
His knuckles graze that sensitive skin along my neck.
Forget thin. The air is gone.
Or maybe I’m just holding my breath. His brows pull forward, those blue-sky eyes turning midnight as they track the path his fingers just followed, then slowly shift back to mine.
Something cold splatters against the top of my foot, shocking the air back into my lungs on a gasp.
I’m clutching the wet cloth in my hands hard enough to wring the liquid from it.
When I look back to Wade, whatever I thought I saw is gone and all that’s left is the easy smile.
He takes the washcloth from me, setting it at the back of the sink. Then wrapping his hands around my shoulders in a gentle hold, he guides me backward until I’m outside the bathroom. “Thanks for getting the lipstick off. Hit the sack and I’ll try to be quiet when I’m done showering.”
And then he closes the door.
Chapter 10
Wade
It’s the crack of dawn and I can’t stop thinking about Harlow. About standing in that bathroom last night with her fingertips burning into the bare skin of my side and those deep brown eyes peering up into mine.
Good thing she turned away when she did, because I was about to do something epically stupid. And I don’t want to be that guy for her.
I want to be a good guy. Not the jerk who convinced her to help me out, only to pay her back by putting moves on her two days into a ten-day favor.
Thing is, it would be a hell of a lot easier to be good if every now and then she didn’t look like she might be thinking something bad.
Keyword there beingmight. As in, alsomight not.
Outside of this week, I’m not a guy who holds back, waiting to see how things play out. I’m a guy who goes after what I want.
The girl, the game, the puck. Whatever it is. I don’t mess around.
If Harlow had been giving me those eyes under any circumstances other than these, I would have had my mouth on hers within a blink. I would have—
Nope.
