Chapter 6
Lydia’s mouth was dry. She was glad there was nothing to talk about, because she wouldn’t have been able to speak, even if she wanted to. The way Remy had looked at her . . . Well, also, the way Remy looked. Shirtless with water dripping down his muscular chest, holding the dog as if he was a precious baby . . . It was too much.
She genuinely couldn’t cope.
Every time her hands skimmed over Hank’s back, she came dangerously close to touching Remy’s chest. The idea filled her with fear and longing, and she genuinely hated the intensity of both.
Because why was it like this, and why was she? Why did she have this . . . thing for him that she couldn’t get rid of?
He was so comfortable with her that he had taken his clothes off and gotten into a bath. That was how little her presence meant to him. While he . . .
He was wrecking her.
This moment was wrecking her.
The dog was also full of lather, and she needed to do something, but she also wanted the moment to just end. So she did something without thinking. She stood up and turned the shower on. Hank leapt off Remy’s lap and turned circles in the tub as if he was excited and definitely not afraid. Remy howled as cold water buffeted his chest and half drowned him where he sat.
But the dog was rinsed.
“Sorry!”
“You brat,” he said, clearly not understanding that she had acted out of a sense of desperation rather than because she was trying to be an annoying younger sister.
But she didn’t have time to say that, because he stood up, Hank leapt out of the tub, and then Remy pulled her in. Holding her fast, facing the showerhead so that she got drenched, his strong hands gripping her upper arms, heat and desire and freezing cold overtaking her all at once. It was erotic, confusing, and just far, far too much.
“If you can dish it out,” he growled in her ear, “then you better be sure you can take it.”
His words should’ve been a challenge. They should’ve made her angry. Instead, they made her ache with erotic longing.
She tried to pull away from him and then he ended up gripping her, turning her toward him, and their eyes met.
Just then, his eyes went wide, as if he realized what was happening.
Oh, dear. Remy could see it. He could see her. The way she felt about him. She felt small, and she felt upset. It wasn’t fair. To be so plagued by this man. To not know what to do in this moment, because the truth was she didn’t have any experience with men. No one could hold a candle to him, so she had just gone flameless instead.
She didn’t know how to be flippant, how to play off a moment of sexual tension.
She didn’t know how to live in it. How to defuse it, or how to progress it.
She felt stupid. Because he could see that she wanted him. And he was probably horrified, because why wouldn’t he be?
Of course.
He had been treating her like a child. Yet to her, this felt erotic.
“Oh no,” he said.
He turned and looked, and her gaze followed his, just in time to see Hank begin to shake, sending water flying all over the bathroom. All the way up to the ceiling.
And then Hank ran happily out of the room.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
“Well. That’s going to be . . . a mess.”
He released his hold on her, and she got out of the bath. “I’m soaking wet,” she said.
Their eyes met, and the slow dawning realization of the double entendre embedded in those words filled her with a sense of horror.
