“Everything okay over there?” His voice was slightly muffled as he kept his word not to look.
“Peachy.” I gave up on trying to figure out boobs underneath an already tangled sweatshirt and whipped the damn thing off, figured out my shit, and then went back to the sweatshirt.
“You would have lost both times,” he murmured from the bed.
“Hush.” Finally dressed in my jams, I dealt with the rest of me. Jewelry, hair—up on top of my head with a satin scrunchie the way God intended for women to sleep—and fuzzy sleep socks. “Okay, I’m done.” I glanced over my shoulder to find him already on his back.
“I could hear you messing with your hair. I knew that was the final step.”
I paused halfway through straightening a fluffy sock. “How could you possibly know that?”
“It’s been that way for as long as I’ve known you,” he pointed out. It had been, but even when he spent the night at my house when we were kids, I didn’t exactly get dressed in front of him. He shrugged and turned his attention back to his phone. “I just know things, okay? Pants. Shirt. Jewelry. Hair. Socks.”
I let out an indignant laugh. “That’s impossible. Have you been spying on me or something?”
He suppressed a smile and said, “I would never. What kind of pervert do you think I am?”
“I know what kind of pervert you are.”
He chanced a glance at me and let out a deep rumbly laugh. “You were seventeen.”
The breath whooshed out of me. “What?”
“I just don’t want you to think I’m actually like... a bad guy. You were seventeen. And your door was cracked. I didn’t see anything, I swear. Just a lot of... hopping around. And hair flipping.”
“Jonah Mason,” I hissed.
“It was cute. I swear.”
Putting the pieces together, I said, “But okay, one time does not a habit make.”
“The other night, I noticed you did the same thing.”
“The other night?”
“When I slept over.”
“Wait... what?”
“Your door was open, okay? It wasn’t like I was trying to spy on you. I just... I couldn’t not watch. It’s not in me. I’m a good guy, but I’m not perfect.”
I pounced on him. Truth be told, I didn’t exactly know what I would do once I got ahold of him, but I couldn’t let him get away with that. This was deplorable behavior. And that he thought he had me all figured out because he’d spied on me twice? The nerve! I was an enigma, dammit. A mystery wrapped in a surprise packaged in spontaneity. He did not know what he was talking about.
He tossed his phone to the side to brace for my impact with both arms. Then we were in a sort of wrestling/tickling match, and I somehow wasn’t winning. We rolled around, totally messing up the blankets, torturing each other until he had me pinned to the bed, and I was gasping for breath.
“Okay, fine! I concede!” I yelped when his hand found my bare side again. It stilled against my skin, but the pressure was there to remind me he could start tickling again at any second. “Enough,” I gasped, sucking in a full breath. “I can’t take anymore.”
He stretched out his arm next to my head and rested his weight on it. Our legs were tangled together still. And his long, lean body was incredibly warm next to mine. “You’re sexy as hell, Eliza, and you know it. If I have ever stolen a glance at you, it was because I couldn’t help it.”
My heart stuttered at his words, and I nearly melted into a puddle right there on the glamping bed. But because I knew he was teasing and that we’d both been drinking, I said, “Well, next time, ask, so I don’t hop around on one foot and look like a total idiot.”
His lips twitched. “You want me to ask your permission the next time I watch you undress?”
My cheeks blushed with heat—both embarrassed and other. He’d said it in such a sexy way, his voice all low and innuendo-y. And he’d done it on purpose because he knew it would throw me. If he was a guy I was trying to flirt with, I would have thrown out something sassy and turned it into an invitation. But because this was Jonah and I knew he was joking, I decided to make him as uncomfortable as he was trying to make me.
“Yes,” I purred, holding his gaze. “I want you to say, ‘please, Eliza, let me see you naked.’” As I said it, I ran my finger up his side, intending to tickle him as badly as he’d tortured me. Instead of flinching, though, he shivered. And instead of pulling away and whacking me with a pillow—like I expected—he just stared at me, all-blue eyes practically on fire, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he struggled to swallow.
“You’re going to get me in trouble,” he murmured, dragging his tongue over his lower lip.
