ButI should’ve done it all the way.
“Being naked in your own bathtub doesn’t count,” he tells me with a grin.
“Just how often do you think about me naked?”
“Pretty much every day.”
My nipples tingle. I tell them to stop because this isnotthe kind of fun we’re having tonight, but they don’t listen. And my mouth doesn’t get the message either. “Like, once a day? Or is it breakfast-lunch-dinner,time to think about naked people timeseveral times a day? Do you just flip through your contact list and picture everyone naked, or only certain people?”
“Only certain people. Usually several times an hour.”
“Do you say that to make me uncomfortable or because it’s true?”
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?”
Do I?
Usually, no.
Today?
“I want to know.”
He glances at me again. “Are you going to call me a dick if you don’t like my answer?”
“Yes. It’s my defense mechanism so I don’t notice you have very nice abs.”
Oh my god. I said that out loud.
I said that out loud, and now he’s flexing his abs.
The manis flexing his abs.
For me.
Today’s been a weird day.Soweird. From theveryunexpected wake-up with his personal problem looming between us, to watching him playing with a bunch of kids on the beach, to worrying over his eyes, to the kittens he rescued in secret and his confession that he used to like me, to the bikini mishap in the pool, to running away with him now—
He puts himself out there.
Foreverything.
“What’s it like to not care what anyone thinks of you?” I ask before I can stop myself.
“Who says I don’t care?”
“If you cared, you wouldn’t be so…”
“Stupid?” he supplies.
“No, I was going to say whatever the word is forwilling to jump into potentially dangerous and often unwise things without thinking them all the way through, but then I realized that sounds like Frumpy Dumpy Delaney, and I’m not her tonight, so please erase the question from your brain. It doesn’t exist.”
“You think I don’t care what anyone thinks of me because I’mspontaneous.”
“I think you’re forty-six steps beyond spontaneous. I also think you care what Emma thinks of you or we wouldn’t be in this car running away from her wedding together. You would’ve ditched me.”
“Maybe that’s my plan.”
I gasp.
