Staten’s eyes nearly pop out of her head, and she gambles a look at my half-nakedness, a healthy blush swarming her cheeks like histamine to a bug bite. “Where’s your shirt?”
My brain short-circuits. I’m staring at her, who’s staring unabashedly at my washboard abs, and neither of us know how to make this interaction less awkward. Usually, I’m all for whoring myself out, but something tells me that Staten has some anti-Knox spray equipped at the ready.
Heart looking for an escape route out of my mouth, I consider the downside of lying to her, though my seemingly present morality makes my mind up for me. “My teammates stole it.”
“They steal your pants too?”
When I glance down, I unintentionally trace her line of sight, and the lower half of me starts to burn with anticipation, pressure concentrating in my cock now that I’ve finally captured her undivided attention. One wrong boner and my clothing conundrum becomes a clothing catastrophe.
Do not get hard right now, Knox.
“Something like that,” I mutter, trying to adjust myself without blatantly grabbing my crotch.
Her pupils widen against bands of carob and branches of cinnamon, and even the unimpressed tug of her lips makes myneurons misfire like a sparking fuse box. I’ve never been self-conscious about my body before, but with Staten crucifying me under a single gaze, I’d suddenly do anything for her approval.
She lingers on my toned stomach, upholding the world’s best poker face. “I didn’t know it was even possible for someone to have an eight-pack.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“It’s an observation.”
I tense my traps as residual liquid carves a valley down the curve of my back. I’m still dripping onto the ground, adding to the water damage already softening the structural integrity beneath my bare feet. The shortening distance between us is a test I’m not prepared to conquer—a test that has the barely contained fire under my skin buoying to the equally molten surface.
Curiosity clings to the underside of my tongue. “Uh-huh. What are you doing here, Staten?”
She hesitates for a moment, letting the stagnant air marinate between us, kicking the toe of her sneaker against the ground with fragile uncertainty. Marzipan-soft. I’ve never seen her so torn before. Unluckily for me, the divot whittled between her brows is nothing short of adorable.
No better than an engine stuck in idle, whatever internal tug-of-war she’s trying—and failing—to deal with comes to an abrupt stop. A rather histrionic sigh rolls out of her lips, lowering her tightly held shoulders in the process.
“I wanted to take you up…on your proposition,” she finally confesses, the words practically hell-bent on fusing to her throat.
She does? Am I dreaming right now? Staten Renault, self-sufficient English prodigy, is asking formyhelp?
I cross my arms over the bulk of my chest. “You want me to be your sex teacher?”
Staten’s face contorts in repulsion, and she even goes a littlegreen around the gills. “What? Ew, gross! No. God, no. I’m talking about the tutoring thing. I could really use the money.”
It was worth a shot, alright?
Shunning my bruised and battered ego, I embrace the relief that follows—the kind that evicts the overstayed and under-welcomed anxiety residing in my belly. “I could really use the help,” I admit with a small smile.
Staten, already keeping up the professional side of things, sticks her hand out for a handshake. This time, her resolve is unwavering—a newly constructed embankment that prohibits fickle floodwaters. “Then I guess we have a deal.”
I feel like the Devil herself has just thrust a fountain pen into my hands, and my unwritten name is waiting on a dotted line. Surely this can’t be worse than selling my soul, right? A part of me worries that I’ll regret this, especially since my emotions never like to play fair. The other part of me, however (the touch-starved part), can’t wait to finally hold her hand in a non-emergency way.
Always the one to half-ass critical thinking, I ball up some saliva in my mouth, huck it straight into the target of my palm, and then protrude my hand outwards.
Staten grimaces, taking her index finger and thumb and forceping the skin on my wrist in a pseudo-handshake.
Got it. Not a fan of bodily fluids. Or maybe just notmybodily fluids.
She then clears her throat as if she’s preparing for a make-it-or-break-it presentation. “We need to go over the logistics,” she announces.
I glance down at the flimsy barrier still barnacled to my hips, and I rub my spit-filled hand down the side of my towel, not missing the way Staten briefly succumbs to her own desire. An unmistakable bite of her lower lip—a frenzy in fever-bright eyes like she’s a bobcat catching a scent in tall grass.
It’s a miracle that my pocket rocket isn’t in full takeoff mode. “Right now? I don’t have any clothes on. And I’ve been told I’mverydistracting without clothes.”
“Presumptuous much?”
