He’s already dragging his soaked shirt over his head and wringing it out, water streaming between his fingers. Then come the boots, followed by his hiking pants, peeled down his legs and twisted in his fists until they drip onto the ground.
Which leaves him standing there in wet boxers plastered to his skin. And I try not to stare. I really do.
But the fabric is clinging to every hard line of him, molded low across his hips and leaving a very unmistakable shape beneath the wet cotton. Long. Heavy. Impossibly defined. My brain, unhelpful in moments of crisis, immediately supplies the image of an overconfident cucumber from the farmers’ market. Not one of the small ones either. One of those ridiculous prize vegetables that looks as if it should have its own table and a blue ribbon.
Heat floods my face because this is him cold. Soaked. Shivering. Presumably at a disadvantage.
Which means my gaze jerks away half a second too late, and now I have questions mostly involving scale, survival, and whether I should start avoiding the produce section.
I really should be rummaging in my bag for dry clothes.
Instead, I’m staring at his back as he’s turned and going through his backpack. The definition between his shoulderblades, the taper of his waist, not to mention the firmness of his ass beneath wet fabric that has absolutely given up on modesty. The muscles in his thighs are carved and dense, flexing as he shifts his weight, and every slick inch of him is designed to torture me.
“I know you’re staring,” he says without turning around.
“Pretty much impossible not to.”
He glances over his shoulder, his smile slow and wicked. “Like what you see?”
“Your body’s ridiculous. Genuinely unfair to the rest of humanity.” I grab my bag and duck behind a wide shrub before I do something mortifying, like keep staring until I owe him a formal apology. Wet leggings off. Wet underwear off. I pull on dry ones, then fresh leggings, and thank God my sports bra stayed dry, but I take off my half-drenched shirt and grab a dry one from my bag.
“You decent over there?” His voice carries from his location.
“Absolutely not.”
“I meant dressed.”
“I know what you meant.”
His laugh comes low and pleased.
When I step out, Corey has his back to me, giving me privacy while he changes with no real effort to be less distracting about it. His wet boxers hit the ground first, bare ass, and my eyes are locked on those firm cheeks. Then there’s the hard shift of muscle along his legs, water glistening on tanned skin before he pulls on dry boxers and hiking pants. Well, I got my eyeful, and unfortunately for my dignity, I have zero regrets.
When he turns, he’s still shirtless, and the sun glints across the planes of his stomach. Water clings to him in places, sliding down the ridges of his abdomen, and I hate my gaze for following it.
“Gonna put a shirt on?” I ask, adjusting my pack.
“Letting it dry.” He meets my eye and holds it, his grin softening into something more deliberate. “So. You and Jakob yesterday.”
My stomach drops. “He told you, didn’t he?”
“Pack members share everything, and he was extremely detailed.” Corey steps close enough that the heat coming off him ruins whatever composure I had left. “Made Brody and me jealous as hell, and I officially have a favorite number. Sixty-nine.”
“Oh God.”
“So you don’t need to be shy around me, Claire.” His voice dips, teasing but rougher now. “I practically feel like I was there.”
“Corey, please stop talking, or I’m going to live behind that shrub permanently.”
His gaze falls to my mouth, and his smile turns dangerous. “I’d move in with you.” He laughs, pulling on a dry T-shirt from his pack, and the spell of his bare torso breaks just enough for me to function.
In no time, we’re walking again. The trail climbs through thinner forest, the air warming, birdsong threading through the canopy. The creek disaster purged the last of the morning’s tension, and we’re talking easily, swapping stories. From his first terrible cooking attempt for Brody, and to me sharing my first book signing where nobody came for forty minutes.
“I told Katie you took me into the woods today,” I say, stepping over a mossy log. “So if anything happens, the police know where to find my body.”
“When you sayanything happensto your body, how detailed are we going with Katie?”
I scoop up a handful of dried leaves from the forest floor and throw them at him. He swats most of them away, grinning, and a few stick in his hair before floating down.
