“Neither are you!”
“So that gives you the right to throw a beer can at me?” I challenge.
“You pushed me into the lake!” she huffs.
“No, you tripped and pulled me in with you.”
We both glare at each other. We look like drowned rats. Blake’s brown hair is matted to her face and cheeks, and her teeth are chattering loud enough for me to hear it.
“I need to get out of these wet clothes,” she grumbles, putting an end to the most aggravating argument I’ve ever had. “I genuinely think I have hypothermia.”
“You don’t have hypothermia.”
“You don’t know that,” she says over her shoulder, stomping away.
I watch her go, frustration rooting me in place.
Blake Logan.
Fuck.
Of all the people who could’ve showed up to intrude on my summer, the universe had to send the one girl I’ve been avoiding for years.
Smothering a groan, I trudge toward the lounge chair where I was peacefully sleeping before Blake decided to ruin my night. My acoustic guitar leans against the neighboring chair, which is covered with paper, all the sheets I’d torn from my notebook strewn across the canvas fabric. I gather the papers, shoving them into the book, then grab the guitar by its neck and climb the stairs to the main deck. Each step is punctuated by the sloshing from my waterlogged clothes.
Rather than enter through the kitchen, Blake goes around the side of the house. I catch up to her as she stumbles into the mudroom, a huge room full of coat hooks, shoe racks, and cabinets with beach towels. Blake approaches the long bench spanning one wall. Whenshe realizes I’m standing in the doorway, she glares at me again.
“Turn around,” she orders.
I give her some privacy, but it’s impossible not to hear what’s happening behind me. The slopping, squishing noises as she removes her soaked clothing, each item hitting the floor with a plop.
Blake Logan is taking her clothes off.
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Okay,” she says a minute later. “I’m decent.”
I’m relieved to see she’s wearing a royal-blue bathrobe now. Except the robe keeps slipping off her shoulder, the collar gaping just enough to tease at the curve of her collarbone and the smooth, pale skin beneath it. I bet her nipples are hard from the cold. I wonder what color they are. Pale pink, I bet. Like little round, pink pearls.
Oh fuck.
I’m getting hard.
“Stop glaring at me,” she mutters. “This wasn’t my fault.”
She thinks I’m glaring. Guess that’s cool. Better than her knowing I’m imagining sucking on her nipples.
She shakes out her head, and instead of giving wet dog, it gives wet goddess, the long strands clinging to her pale cheeks like dark ribbons. I wrestle my gaze away and try to distract myself from my semihard dick by pulling off my soaked hoodie. I toss it on the bench, all the while avoiding Blake’s stormy gaze and reminding myself that this is what happens when you’re not getting laid.
That’s all this is. Six months of celibacy taking their toll on me. Nothing to do with the woman in the bathrobe.
“Why is this thing so huge?” She holds up one sleeve and watches it flop over. She really is drowning in that robe.
I give a wry grin. “I’m pretty sure that’s Dean’s.”
“How do you know?”
I gesture to the breast pocket. The initials DDL are stitched on it in white thread. Dean Di Laurentis. The robe I grab for myself says JT. John Tucker.
