Or, rather, what hewasn’twearing.
Because, apparently, what he was wearing was almost nothing at all. It was just a towel wrapped around his waist. And not even a very big towel, either. The knot he had made in it was clearly straining; the two sides it held together formed more of a sexy split than anything else.
She could see thigh.
A lot of thigh.
Though it was his torso and arms that really did a number on her.
They were all golden and glossy from the shower, and even bigger than they looked beneath shirts. His biceps swelled thickly into forearms like redwood branches; his chest and stomach formed a great and glorious slab. And the dark, luxurious thatch of hair on both? Just absolutely nuts. All she could think of on seeing it was,He really is the Beast, from the Disney movie; all he’s missing are the horns and the fangs.
And not in a way that suggested she was put off.
In the other way. The bad way. The ogling way.
It probably explained why he grabbed a blanket from the couch beside him and whipped it in front of himself. Like a nun, trying to hide herself from a big brute who’d just barged into her house. Only the nun in question was a gigantic hairy man, while the brute stood five feet three in heels and was truthfully more eyes and freckles and glasses and curly red hair than anything else. In fact, boobs and thighs and butt aside, she was really quite small.
Not that any of this made what she’d done understandable or decent.
A fact that he well knew. “What in tarnation are you doing in here?” he wanted to know. And so now she had to explain. She had to explainwell.
Even though all she had was complete nonsense.
“I brought you that book you wanted,” she said, and sure enough, his answering expression was a picture of furious incredulity and astonishment. Before he managed to fully process what she was holding out, something worse took over. It crept over his face in a great red wave, so obvious that she couldn’t have mistaken it.
He was embarrassed. Mortified, even.
Over somethingshehad done. Words practically stormed out of him when he finally got himself together enough to say them. “Howdareyou accuse me of wanting a book,” he said, with suchfury she almost didn’t register the nonsensical point he’d made. All she could think was run, run, and not just because he was angry.
Because the wholeplaceseemed angry for a moment.
The air felt charged. The lights actually appeared to dim—and to the point where she glanced at them nervously to see if she was just imagining things. And once she confirmed that they were still fully lit, she still kind of wanted to get out of there. It was only the need to protest her innocence that held her in place.
“But I didn’t accuse you of that. Unless you think reading is a crime,” she said, and was proud of herself for doing it. Even though she could tell it hadn’t helped, just by his apoplectic expression.
“Oh, so you’re going to play mind games. Make me out to be illiterate.”
“What? I didn’t do that. I was just trying to say that this wasn’t an attack.”
“Well, it sure feels like one, barging in, touching stuff, looking at me nude.”
Looking at him nude, her mind moaned, and now it was her turn to go red.
It didn’t make her angry, however. It made her want to explain.
“But I didn’t mean to look at you nude. It was all just an accident.”
“Doesn’t seem that way when you’re still gawping at my gut.”
“I’m not gawping at your gut, you’re just so tall that’s where my eyeline is.”
He threw up his hands. Shook his head, like a disappointed dad. “And now come the cracks about what a huge disgusting ogre I am. Well, I’m sorry that I don’t have a six-pack, but no matter how many crunches I do my muscles apparently don’t want to work that way,” he said.
It made her panic even harder.
Because oh no, oh no, she had made him thinkthat.
“Oh gosh, I would never want them to. That wasn’t what I meant.”
