Normal house sounds. Background noise.
I shimmied into my shorts and was halfway through tugging my T-shirt over my head when a sharp thud echoed through the quiet.
I froze.
For a heartbeat there was nothing—no curse, no follow-up noise, just the steady rush of water.
My stomach dropped.
He slipped. He hit his head. He’s bleeding out on the floor and he can’t get up.
The thought hit so fast it stole my air. Before I could talk myself out of it, I was in the hall, bare feet slapping against the wood. The door to Wes’s room was closed, soft light peeking out from the crack where it met the jamb.
I knocked hard on the wood. “Wes?” My voice came out too high. “You okay?”
Nothing. Just the faint sound of running water from the en suite bathroom.
Panic spiked. I pushed the door open and stepped into his room, the warm, humid air wrapped around me. The bathroom door was only half-shut, light peeking from the gaps. I crossed the room in three strides and knocked on the door, louder this time.
“Wes, I’m coming in, okay?” I waited a heartbeat for him to yell at me, but could only hear running water. My heart rate doubled. “Wes? If you don’t answer, I’m coming in.”
Still nothing.
I gripped the handle.
“Oh please,” I whispered, and shoved the door all the way open. “Don’t be dead.”
A wall of steam hit me first, fogging the mirror and blurring the edges of the tile. The shower was on full blast, water pattering against stone. Through the haze, the glass door was a fogged-up rectangle—and inside it, a very large, very naked man.
Wes was braced against the tile with one hand, the other arm bent, jaw tight, chest heaving. He was standing, but only just, his weight clearly shifted to his good leg. The residual limb on the other side was bare and stark, his skin an angry mix of pinks and whites. Muscles trembled under the strain of holding himself steady.
For a split second my gaze dropped—taking in the solid line of his thigh, the dark hair at the base of his stomach, and, yes, the very real, very unmissable view of his dick, water and soap sliding over every inch of him.
“Oh my god—sorry!” I sucked in a breath and slapped a hand over my eyes, spinning so fast I nearly slipped. “I thought you fell. I heard—I thought—are you okay?”
Behind me, there was a wet scrape and the squeak of skin against glass as he shifted, trying to cover himself with absolutely nowhere to go.
“Jesus, Clara,” he snapped, his voice rough and way too close. “Ever heard of knocking?”
“I did knock!” My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might punch right through my ribs. “Twice! You didn’t answer. I thought you cracked your skull open or something.”
His breathing stayed uneven, like maybe hehadslipped a little, and maybe it had scared him too.
“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Get out!”
I kept my face turned toward the steamed-up mirror, eyes pinned forward, but my peripheral vision was apparently an asshole, because I still caught another flash of him when I risked a tiny sideways glance.
This time, the shock of nakedness took a back seat to everything else. The way his hand splayed across the tile. The way his muscled shoulders glistened under the spray. The way the scarred limb ended abruptly. How his thigh quivered where it worked twice as hard to keep him upright.
Wes didn’t look fine. He looked like a man standing on the edge of a cliff, pretending the view didn’t terrify him.
“You don’t ... look fine,” I said quietly, keeping my back to him.
That hit something raw.
“Well, I’m not dead,” he snapped. “So congratulations, the wellness check worked. Now get the fuck out.”
The bite in his tone should have pissed me off. It did, a little. But under the anger, all I heard was humiliation.
