Not a gradual build. Not a polite flush that tints the cheeks with a becoming rose. A full-body thermochemical event that starts at my sternum and erupts in every direction simultaneously, flooding my face, my neck, the exposed shoulder, the tips of my ears, and probably the soles of my feet because my circulatory system has apparently decided that the only appropriate response to this moment is to redirect every drop of blood in my body toward my skin's surface.
"Mind your fucking business!" I yank the hem downward with both hands, which accomplishes nothing because the fabric springs back to its original position the moment I release it, the cotton's elastic memory proving stronger than my dignity.
He huffs.
The sound is loaded with the specific exasperation of a man who has been placed in a situation he did not create and is being blamed for observing.
"Hard to mind my business when I'm standing in some random girl's room." His arms uncross, hands dropping to his sides in a gesture that communicates the surrender of trying to look anywhere other than where the evidence is displayed. "A girl who smells like sin and addiction, by the way. And I'm stuck doing some fuckery with you without even knowing how you identify."
"I'm straight!" The declaration erupts with a volume and defensiveness that could probably be heard in the study whereour fathers are reviewing coaching contracts. "I totally know who I am!"
I jab a finger in his direction.
"And YOU shouldn't even be here! In my room! In my house! How is any of this normal?"
He tilts his head. The movement is minimal but loaded, his green eyes narrowing by a fraction, that infuriating eyebrow climbing again.
"Who pulled me like a wrecking ball into her room, huh?"
The accuracy of the question is physically painful.
Because he is correct. I did that. I grabbed his hand and towed him through my mother's living room and up the staircase and down the hallway and through the door like a runaway train hauling cargo it did not check the manifest for. Every step of this escalation was powered by my momentum, my grip, my legs, my spectacular inability to make calm decisions when my adrenaline is elevated and my pheromones are compromised by cedarwood and graphite and warm amber.
I stomp my foot.
The impact rings through the hardwood with the petulant percussion of a grown woman resorting to childhood protest tactics because her argumentative arsenal has been depleted by a man who fights with logic instead of volume.
"Leave!"
He huffs again. A different huff this time. Shorter. Conclusive. The huff of a man who has considered the request, evaluated its merits, and arrived at a decision that he will now communicate through action rather than words.
He sits on the bed.
Not on the edge. Not in the tentative perch of a guest maintaining proximity to the exit. He shifts his weight backward, settling into the center of my mattress, the white bedding crinkling beneath his frame as he positions himselfagainst the headboard with the territorial ease of a man moving into permanent residence. His long legs stretch across the white duvet. His arms cross over his chest, elbows resting on either side of his ribcage.
"Nah." The single syllable lands with the finality of a gavel. "I'll just get comfortable."
And then he pulls off his shirt.
The fitted black fabric comes over his head in a single fluid motion, arms lifting, torso extending, the hem climbing past his waistband to reveal a strip of lean abdominal definition before the undershirt beneath takes over the job of concealment. The shirt clears his head, ruffling the ginger chaos further, and he shakes it out with one hand like a flag being unfurled.
My eyes lock onto the undershirt.
White. Fitted. Thin cotton that clings to the architecture of his upper body in a way that the outer shirt merely suggested and this layer now confirms. His shoulders are broader than I estimated during our forest encounter, the deltoid muscles defined through the fabric in clean lines that taper into arms I can now appreciate without the interference of structured sleeves. The shirt sits flat against a torso that is lean but layered, the kind of musculature built through explosive training rather than bulk conditioning.
Thank god he has an undershirt.
If he had been bare-chested, I would have needed to be airlifted out of this room by medical professionals.
He tosses the black shirt at me.
It lands on my chest with a soft impact, the fabric warm from his body, saturated with a concentration of cedarwood and graphite and amber that hits my olfactory system at close range like a controlled substance delivered directly to the brainstem. The scent is dense in the weave of the cotton, layered with a warmth that is distinctly, intimately his.
"Cover your damn self so I'm not taunted by your undies."
"PERVERT!"
The word erupts with righteous fury as I snatch the shirt from my chest and hold it at arm's length like a piece of contaminated evidence.
