Page 54 of Your Last First Kiss
My towel.
Gah. I move even faster so they can’t see me fan myself.
“Ah, yeah. Okay. Show Dillon where everything is. Okay?”
“Don’t you want to show me?” Dillon’s husky voice murmurs into my hair.
I’m so startled that I nearly scream. I drag my hand up to my chest like I can physically hold my heart in place as it tries to escape through my throat.
“Geez, Dillon.” My voice is breathy as I turn to face him.
He’s wearing a blinding smile and a thermal shirt with small patches of sweat on his chest and under his arms. Proof that he put in a full day’s work with Miller.
Holy shit.
“S—Sorry,” I stutter. “It’s hot in here. Right? I’m not used to having so many people in my house. Maybe I should turn down the heat.” I blink rapidly, then scan the room like a petty thief.
He takes a step forward. I take two back.
Looking behind him, I don’t see Miller or Kai.
“They’re taking the first showers.”
“You won’t have any hot water left if they go first.”
His gaze rakes over me from head to toe, and my body flushes with embarrassment. Normally when Dillon sees me, I’m putting forth my best effort. I hate to admit it, but I get up an hour early on Wednesdays to put myself together. For him? For me? I don’t know. But I always feel good when he stares at me with that look in his eyes.
But even as I stand here in holey pants and a vomit-splattered shirt, he has the same gleam in his eyes. Like he’s mentally counting backward so he doesn’t maul me right here on the floor.
Either I’m completely out of practice with flirting, or I’m in some serious freaking trouble.
“I think a cold shower is exactly what I need,” he growls.
I gulp like a bullfrog, and he laughs. His tone is warm and inviting. It’s a caress in the dark that reaches into the deepest parts of my being.
“Oh,” is what I manage to say. “Right.” I can’t seem to string a sentence together, so I turn quickly, searching for a distraction. When I don’t find one, I spin again and face plant against his chest. “Do you always move so quietly? Like a, like a…”
I tilt my head back to find him smiling down at me. His left hand lands on my hip, and he uses the index finger on his right hand to brush a piece of hair off my face.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, trying not to memorize how he smells. Masculine and spicy, with a hint of campfire. But not the stinky kind of campfire, the kind that reminds you of s’mores and hot chocolate. Where did his root beer scent go?
“I have no fucking idea,” he admits. His gaze never wavers. He doesn’t back away. We stand suspended in time while our breaths mingle like hot buttered rum on a cold night. Our scents meld into one.
“Why don’t you smell like root beer anymore?” It slips out, and I wish I could hide because who asks that? But his eyes are alight with humor.
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out an old-fashioned root beer barrel hard candy. “I like that you noticed. It means you’re as in tune with me as I am with you. I chew these suckers up whenever I’m nervous, I have since I was a kid. I crushed one in the elevator every time I came to see you.”
With honesty shining in his eyes, he says, “I’m not nervous anymore, Penny.”
I don’t know what to say to that. He was nervous to see me? Him? To see me? He’s completely ridiculous and smells completely delicious.
“I can’t believe I’m so focused on how we smell.”
His grin widens into a big toothy smile, and I frown a little.
“What?”
Dillon leans forward so the scruff of his jaw scrapes across the skin on my cheek when he speaks. “I love how we smell too, Penny. Like us. Like home. I like it a whole fucking lot.”
