I am sitting on the tile floor of the men’s locker room with his towel in both hands, Grayson Wolfe is standing directly above me, and I am looking up at every single inch of him from the worst possible angle.
He is very, very big.
I have seen a lot of men in hospital gowns. I have seen a lot of men without them. I am a nurse. The human body is not a mystery to me.
Except apparently it is, because I cannot move. I cannot look away. I cannot do anything except sit on this cold floor with his towel clutched to my chest like some kind of trophy I did not ask for.
“Cover yourself!” It comes out as something between a gasp and a shriek as I scramble to my feet. “Right now. Cover yourself!”
“With what, exactly?” His voice is pure amusement. “You’re holding my towel hostage.”
I look down.
The terrycloth is crumpled in both fists, clutched against my chest like I took it on purpose. My face somehow gets hotter. I turn, throwing it over my shoulder at him without looking and hear it land somewhere behind me.
“There. Fixed. I’m leaving.”
I take one step.
My sneaker hits a wet patch of tile.
The floor rushes up again, and I pitch forward this time, arms flying out, bracing for the impact of cold, hard ground. It doesn’t come. A hand shoots out and catches me around the waist, hauling me back, and I crash into a wall of warm, solid muscle with enough force to knock every useful thought clean out of my head.
I grip his forearms and try to remember how breathing works.
Then I realize the towel is still on the floor somewhere behind us.
I go completely still.
He is still very, very big.
Stop thinking about it, I order myself, but the firm order is absolutely useless because the more I try not to think about it, the more my brain circles back around to what I just saw from the floor.
This is not good. This is not good at all.
“What are you thinking about?” His voice is low, right beside my ear, a teasing edge to his voice. “You’ve gone very quiet.”
“Nothing.” I swallow. “I’m not thinking.”
“Really?” he asks mockingly. “Are you sure? You wouldn’t happen to be having any inappropriate thoughts about me,would you?” One of his arms is banded around my waist, and the other trails slowly up my chest to gently circle my neck.
“Of course not!” I splutter, but my face is burning. I can feel every inch of him pressed against me. “Let me go!”
He releases me immediately.
But before I can take even one step away from him, his hands find my shoulders, and he whirls me around, slamming me into the cool metal of a locker with a soft clang. He fills my entire field of vision. Heat rolls off him in waves, that unnatural warmth of his surrounding me from every direction, and his amber eyes are dark and hooded and fixed entirely on my face.
He has still not picked up the towel.
“You came in here,” he says, his expression grievous. “You took off my towel.” His eyes hold mine. “I feel very exposed. Violated, even.”
“It was an accident,” I stammer. “Now let me go.”
“Was it?” His gaze moves over my face, settling on my lips, the corner of his own twitching. “It didn’t feel like an accident.”
“W-Well, it was!”
Why am I so flustered? Why can’t I just handle this like an adult?
