I just didn’t needthis.
My house? Shit, I could’ve paid for her stay at any hotel in town.
Yet my angry, horny, dick-dragging buffalo brain decided to bring her here, into my home.
I haven’t figured out what I’m going to tell Colt.
The water stops.
I do my best not to imagine her stepping out of the shower, glistening with droplets, tiny rivulets tracing her curves before she dries off with a towel.
Yeah, this is not going well, and it’s barely the firsthour.
No matter how much I try to focus on moldy sausages and the last time my little nephew Arlo stuffed himself with too many brownies and barfed on Mom’s Turkish rug, when Winnie barges into the room, all the gross shit in the world can’t undo the awful truth.
I’m still hard enough to cut diamond.
And when I look up, seeing her standing there in nothing more than a towel, I know it’s a lost battle.
It’s modest enough, yes, covering everything important, but it stops mid-thigh like a towel should. I want nothing more than to skate my hands all the way up her leg until she’s gasping and wet—in an entirely different way from the shower.
I focus on her face and try not to look down. She gives me a small smile.
“Hey, Archer.”
“Hey.”
Her eyes flick down and almost immediately snap back to my face. Hopefully she hasn’t noticed the tent in my pants.
“I’m sorry about this whole thing, you know. I just wanted to tell you again.”
“I heard you the first fifty times, Winnie. It’s fine.”
In fact, we’re living the opposite offine.
“You can call me Win like everybody else. If you want to, I mean…”
I blink at her.
Bad, bad idea.
Take down too many of the flimsy barriers left between us and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from touching her. It’s already all I can think about, a steady roar between my ears and in my cock.
Hell, I’ve already started calling her Sugarbee, releasing that name I only kept in my head. Another mistake.
“Okay,” I say after a second. “But you need to stop apologizing.”
She swallows hard and drops her gaze to the floor.
I hold in a sigh.
Even if I’m currently being tortured by one of the sexiest women alive in my master bedroom wearing a towel and nothing else, I know this was the right decision, getting her out of there.
My bathroom has the best shower in the house with steam and dual rainfall heads. After the shit Holden pulled, she deserved max comfort when she said she wanted to clean up.
She’s so delicate, so fragile, so beautiful inside and out despite her obnoxious singing. I want her to feel safe, dammit.
Then she presses her hand to the towel’s knot under her arm and blushes something fierce.