CHAPTER ELEVEN
Shayla wasn’t used to driving a vehicle this enormous, and it was a little scary, but she focused instead on the positives. Being able to look down on all of the other drivers as she pushed past the edge of the speed limit was pretty cool.
The exception to that were the people driving the big rigs. They still looked down on her—and had a clear shot of the nearly naked Navy SEAL lying on his back in the bed of the truck, trying not to puke. He’d kept his underwear on—white boxers, which really, when she thought about it, was the only option under white uniform pants.
He had an angry red mark on his back from where the bucket had made contact, but it hadn’t broken the skin.
His right elbow, on the other hand, was shredded. Shay didn’t want to think about whatever it was in that bucket making contact with an open scrape, but it had. And the sooner she got him home, the faster they could get him cleaned up.
He’d had a pack of utility-size trash bags—thick black plastic—stashed in one of the locked compartments in the back of the truck, and at his instruction, she’d gotten out a few. One for his clothes and her trashed sweater, and a second to contain the bucket.
So far, Peter had resisted her suggestion that they call the police. She knew he desperately wanted to get home to wash, so she hadn’t pushed, but it was possible there were fingerprints on that bucket, so they took it with them.
Traffic was heavier than she liked, especially since she was piloting theMillennium Falcon,but she finally pulled onto their street.
And oh, good. Mrs. Quinn was out watering her flowers, and yup, she’d perked up into hyper-nosy mode as she realized that Shay was driving the SEAL’s truck.
Harry popped in, already laughing his ass off.Mrs. Quinn’s gonna shit a full flock of Canadian geese when she sees…
Yup, even before Shay had completely braked to a stop in Peter’s driveway, he was up and out of the truck, a flash of mostly tanned skin and golden hair, beelining for the backyard.
That,Harry finished with a chortle as yup, in the rearview Shay saw that Mrs. Quinn had dropped her hose. It must’ve been locked into anonposition, because it kept spraying and it danced around wildly—causing Mrs. Quinn to shriek and run for cover.
Shayla waved to the woman as casually as she could as she locked Peter’s truck with abeepfrom the key fob.
Harry hovered.Now what? Follow him back there to help? He’s no longernearlynaked, FYI.
Shay confirmed the obvious—Peter had, indeed, left his boxers behind in the truck. He probably would’ve left his poop-matted hair if he could’ve.
He was probably using his own hose to, literally, hose himself down. Odds were that he didn’t need any help.
But you have his keys,Harry pointed out.
She looked down at them—the chain included the keys to his house. She had his phone and wallet, too, pulled from his pockets before the slime had contaminated them. Shehadto go back there to give it all to him. And while she was there, she could offer to get him a towel from inside.
Yeah,Harry said as he followed her down a neatly swept path that led around to the back of Peter’s house.That’s why you’re going. To get the SEAL a towel.
And to help him clean out that scraped elbow after he was done with the hose-down. She could hear the sound of water running—Peter had, indeed, turned on his hose.
You want to get a good look at his elbow, because you’re the witty neighbor, so you definitely didn’t bother checking out his ass as he did his streaker impression.
Hehadbeen running pretty fast.
Right.
Okay so, naked, the SEAL was an eleven on a scale from one to ten. And yup again, there he was, holding up the hose with one hand as he used the other to attempt to comb the crap out of his hair.
He’d done an all-over rinse, so now his mostly-tan-and-goldenness was covered with shimmering droplets of water.
Harry whistled.Well, my, my, my, my-my-my my! Isn’thewell—
“Shh.” Women didn’t focus on superficial things like that. Shayla tried to see if the bucket-impact mark on his back was still as angry looking.
Liar, liar, pants on fire. Oh, wait. Your pants arealsoon fire for another reason.
Peter straightened up, squeegeeing his hair back as he rinsed his face, and all of his muscles rippled and moved and…Oh, my goodness.
“Goodness” is putting it mildly. Lordy, Lordy, woman, I can feel the heat from your pants afire—the non-lying kind—from here.
