Returning inside, I’m about to give up when a lock clicks and a door opens.
Hector steps out of the bathroom. A cloud of post-shower steam billows around him. He’s dressed in only a maroon towel. His torso is taut and rippling. Still-wet dark hairs are dashed across his chest. He runs a second, smaller towel through his black locks, not seeing me at first.
Blood rushes north toward my face and down south.Whoa.It’s been a minute since I was alone in a room with a half-naked hot guy like this. And the fact that the half-naked hot guy is Hector Martinez only makes this moment more invigorating.
When he finally notices me, he jumps. He uses the hair towel to try for modesty, but fails spectacularly. “Shit, dude. My bad.” He rushes over to his bed and brushes past me on the way. That moment of contact sends a scintillating shiver down my spine. “I thought you were upstairs. I would’ve brought my clothes in with me.”
Would it be weird if I said I didn’t mind? The alarm on his face says:Yep. One-hundred-percent weird.
“It’s fine.” I’m hoping to sound as nonchalant as possible to disguise any and all arousal that may have sprung up (kill me!) from this surprising scene.
One foot at a time, he slips the black boxer briefs up under his towel, and I train my eyes on his collarbones. That seems like the least compromising and safest place to look, while I ask in a landslide of excitement (tree-related excitementonly), “Do you think you can get Natalia’s truck tonight?”
He grabs for his T-shirt, his worked-out shoulder muscles flexing, and I realize I’ve horribly miscalculated. I’m even more enthralled than before.
“I thought we agreed we weren’t going back until tomorrow morning?” he asks.
“I want a tree,a real one, for the living room. I hate that fake stuff. My grandma said they stopped getting one from the farm because of Gramps’s back, but they’ve got two strapping young men living here now, so I figured we could do all the heavy lifting. What do you think?”
“I think they haveonestrapping young man living here now and onesemi-strappingyoung man who can supervise.” The wordstrappingsends my gaze lower and then right back up. I’m beyond flustered, eyes bouncing around, pulse spiking.
I swallow hard, avoiding other inconvenient hard things.
“So, can you get it?” I ask, angling away.
“I can ask. I’m sure it’s no big deal. They don’t use it much anymore.” It knocks me that he knows this fact. That means there is a whole book full of other facts he could spout off about Natalia and her family. He knows her. Not in the way I want to know him right now, sweaty and with no strings, but fully and intimately.
There’s a beat. A heated look. An urge to fill the gap, but nothing comes.
“I’m going to finish getting dressed and call. Do you mind?” Of course, he’d want privacy. He nods toward the stairs. It’s clear he’s directing me to go before he undoes the knot in the towel.
“Sounds Gucci. I mean, good. I mean, uh, yeah, sounds good.” I shoot him finger guns before hurling myself up the steps.
Sounds Gucci? Finger guns? Fuck.My weird side—the one Bentley makes me coat-check on the way into clubs—is showing just like it did when I sang fromThe Sound of Music. He’s getting to the core of me, and that’s cause for concern.
Even so, I think about his collarbones all the way back to the kitchen.
Why is it that I’m always losing my chill around him? I know it’s shallow, but in the city, people clock me from across the dance floor and don’t think twice. Even in profile, they know who I am and who my parents are. It doesn’t matter if I’m a sweetheart or a major asshole. It doesn’t matter if I’m wearing the right cologne or the best pants that show off my ass. Guys want to sleep with me for the story.
Do I love that? No. Do I love a chiseled jawline and biceps that could crush me? Absolutely. And I can’t blame these boys. I’ve done the same with more than my fair share of semi-celebs and models. Falling into bed with someone isn’t falling in love. Casual sex is a hobby you pick up whenever the fancy strikes.
Here, right now, the image of Hector’s bulging towel swimming in my mind, the fancy is striking hard and hot. I don’t know if I’m looking for a distraction and seducing him will do the trick or if I expect some sort of mind-blowing orgasm out of this whole ordeal. Either way, he needs to stop looking the way he does because it’s dangerous.
Grandma hangs up the handset. “Gramps is on his way home. He sounds excited.” She starts riffling through a chest underneath a bench seat by the door. In it, she stores her winter accessories. She picks out a purple hat with a ridiculous pink puffball on top.
“This is going to be fun!” she squeals.
And for the first time since I got here, I think the same.
Chapter 16
Gramps pulls his sedan up to Natalia’s house in Havensmith Hollow, just south of the Downtown District.
It’s a sprawling Victorian home settled upon an estate. It has a grandiose off-white exterior and forest-green shutters that are stark in bright landscaping lights. Electric candles sit proudly in every window, welcoming the holidays with their persistent glow.
An ominous, pointy tower punctures the night sky on the far right, a story or two above the bay window. I devilishly wonder if that’s where Natalia’s parents hide her away from the world. With long hair like hers and an operatic voice, she couldn’t be more like Rapunzel if she tried.
I don’t know what I expected, but of course this is where she lives. Her father is the dean of a college, and she just studied abroad in Vienna. This must be campus-owned housing since it’s only a short walking distance from the main lawn, but the decor and level of care scream wealth.
