“I didn’t want to wake you,” I say, nervous energy spiraling inside.
Because I want to pounce on you and then spend the day curled up against your side, and I have this suspicious feeling that if I glimpse at you, I won’t have the willpower to save myself.
“It’s a little late for that.”
“Oh, well—” I shrug, out of excuses, but still desperate to vacate the premises. The intoxicating scent of pine and cedar swirls a hand around me. Something begs me to curl back into bed with Seth. Like there’s an unrelenting tug between us that I can’t quite explain.
I reach again for the knob. There’s no way I’m dealing with these sensations, and there isn’t a moment to spare regarding Operation Get-Ellie-To-Undo-This and Operation-Learn-How-to-Murder-Faeries.
Hopefully, it’s something as easy as killing vampires with garlic, but even if it’s a tad trickier, I’ll devote my entire life to the mission.
Because me? Enamored with Lumberjack Frasier? Really?
And the fantasies I’ve had of him, too.
This Maddie is pathetic.
“Buttercup, please don’t go out there like that,” Seth groans. “I don’t want to fight all the guys this early.”
With a heavy sigh, I relent. My fresh memories of this timeline tell me that Seth is the star quarterback of some D1 college in New Hampshire—Fezziwig University. And he lives with a bunch of his teammates in an old, drafty colonial house on campus.
So exiting this room without pants isn’t a great idea either.
But I’m a mature young lady with plenty of grace and self-control. I can put my pants on here without jumping Seth Aarons’ bones.
I am calm, cool, and unaffected by the man lying in bed.
Gathering the rough denim, I slip my leg in. Seth shifts in bed. My eyes draw to him with the feedback from the sliding friction. The top sheet falls just enough to catch a peek at the broad, toned chest that singed my shoulder blades minutes earlier. Ink swirls around a chiseled pectoral and down a muscular, veined arm, and that’s all it takes to annihilate my will to leave. Every inch of me wants to laugh. Captain Pretentious would never mar his body like that.
And he’d hate that Ellie’s made him a one-dimensional jock, who fucks and plays football phenomenally, but needs a tutor.
Needsme.
In my shameful ogling, I miss my second pant leg and tumble to the floor with a yelp.
“Jesus, you okay?” He bolts upright in bed, and the sheet drops to his lap.
Oh hell. My goal to get dressed without jumping Seth Aarons suffers damaging blows with his exposed chest. Light streams in from the window, falling on his soft, pillow lips twisted into a worried frown and highlighting his dimpled chin. Auburn tendrils wink in the morning light, buried in his chestnut curls tousled to perfection on top of his head and shaved short on the side.
He lazily runs his fingers through them—his biceps flex. The skin over the ridges and valleys of his abdomen pulls taut.
It’s doubtful he knows how sinfully sexy he is right now.
But I sure the hell am.
A corner of his mouth tugs up ever-so-slightly, and his verdant gaze twinkles with mischief.
Never mind, he’s fully aware, too.
Maybe shamelessly staring at him from the floor without a modicum of pride or chill tipped him off.
This is retribution for every past evil deed I’ve ever committed. It must be.
There’s no other way to explain the fluttering, sputtering insides yelling that I’m the property of Seth Aarons or the crystal-clear revelation that ownership doesn’t run both ways.
I’m Seth Aarons’s fuck buddy, and we both know it.
“Can you just come back into bed, Buttercup?” he asks, his voice still thick with sleep. “Or I can throw you over my shoulder and put you back here; however you want to play it?” He flashes a devilish grin, and any self-control I possess evaporates in the blaze hung in his cheeky gaze.
