Page 61 of Royal Rising

“I didn’t want to drip through your apartment again,” I tell her, unbuttoning my shirt. “We made enough mess getting the chair out.”

I don’t see her watching until I lift my head and the expression on her face looks like…

It kind of looks like she hasn’t eaten in a couple of days.

“Is this okay?” I ask her quickly.

“You standing here naked? Um… sure?” She looks everywhere but at me, which is funny since we’re standing in the dark.

I can’t help the smirk. “It’s not like you haven’t seen me naked before.”

“No, no, I’m fairly certain I’ve never seen you naked before,” she corrects.

“It’s not a big deal.” I finish unbuttoning with suddenly unsteady fingers and let my shirt hang open for a moment before I shrug it off.

She looks at me with an expression I’ve never seen in her eyes, but I can read her pretty well. “Uh-huh,” she says.

I stay like that for a moment. I know Edie is looking and I want—

I’m not sure what I want.

Finally, Edie draws a shaky breath and thrusts the towels at me. “I’ll find you something to wear,” she mutters, and heads to her room.

“You should get out of your wet clothes too,” I call after her, just to be a jerk. In the dim light, I see Edie’s cat watching me.

He doesn’t seem impressed.

19

Edie

Kalle is…

Incredibly hot.

It’s not like I saw much of him—my apartment is dark but a little shade of gray shines through the window, right to where Kalle was standing. I could see enough.

There were muscles on muscles, his abs divided into eight little sections, all cumulating into the sharp V-ridges above his hips.

And I had no idea how strong the urge to reach out andtouchone of them would be.

Reach out and touchKalle.

I lean against my bedroom door. I shut it so I can change, not that there’s enough moonlight coming in the window for anyone—Kalle—to see me. It’s still the principle of being without clothes with a man in my apartment, even if it’s a man I’ve known most of my life.

Kalle is my friend, not some random guy to be ogled. And he doesn’t need to see me undress, since with my luck the power will come on at just the wrong moment.

If I close my eyes, I can still see him.

I’ve seen him without his shirt on before. We’ve gone swimming, hung out at the beach. I even interrupted him once after he got out of the shower, wrapped only in a towel.

That was a nice image to remember, but it didn’t throw me like this.

I draw in another shaky breath. A crack of thunder sounds and I let out a little yelp.

“You okay in there?” Kalle calls, breaking me out of my trance caused by a fine set of abdomen muscles.

“Good. Fine.” The lightning that follows lights up my room. “Great.”

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