Page 31 of An Ex Affair

Opening the door, I slammed right into a wall of Colson. The towel loosened around my chest and I grabbed for it, while Colson grabbed my hips to keep me steady.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I, uh, was going to ask if you were done.”

I tipped my head way back to peer up at him. He looked embarrassed.

“Were you just perving outside my shower like a Peeping Tom?” I teased him, resorting to humor when I was nervous.

His eyes widened, but instead of denying my ridiculous claim, he licked his lips. His gaze slid over my face, down my neck, and to my damp chest where I clutched the towel like a lifeline. The hands bracketing my hips dug into my skin.

And that’s when I felt it. The undeniable proof digging into my belly that my ex-husband still found me attractive. Just like the rest of him, he’d grown and developed over the years.

Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Colson

I scoffed.“I was going to yell at you not to use all the hot water.”

Shit, I couldn’t step away. Couldn’t pull my hips back and hide the evidence that Tully still got to me. Couldn’t take my hands off her waist and keep them to myself when all I wanted to do was slide them around and grab a handful of that ass that had been one of many sources of frustration since Tully had come back to town.

“Rude.”

Her chest was rising and falling rapidly. I hoped she’d breathe her way right out of that stupid towel.

“You told me to be mean to you,” I muttered, gaze tracing the dot of water lazily sliding down the side of her neck.

Her pink tongue darted out and licked her lips. Her voice came out all breathy and sexy as hell. “And if I wanted you to be nice?”

I lost the fight when she tipped her head back, throat bared to me like she still trusted me. Fuck, I didn’t even remember why Iwas trying to stay away from Tully. We had always been like two magnets, slamming against each other like we were meant to be together. My eyelids slid half closed, my vision tunneling until she was the only thing I knew existed outside of myself.

“I’d do this.” My voice was barely a grumble of consonants and vowels. It didn’t matter if she heard me when action was more my style. My head dipped and suddenly my lips were against all that overheated soft skin of her neck, sucking away the drop of moisture. Tully inhaled so sharply it forced her body forward, every single curve and dip of her all too familiar physique plastered against me. Her heartbeat fluttered under my tongue when it dared a taste of her skin. Her hands gripped my shoulders, nails biting into my skin.

Heat and wind rushed past my ears, not unlike the moment when a firefighter was inside a building, fighting a fire that’s gotten out of control, and he knows he’s up shit creek. If this was how I was going to go down, I was fine with it. I’d burn right alongside Tully until we were just a pile of intertwined ash. I hadn’t truly been living since she left me anyway.

My lips shifted up the column of her neck and she let out a soft moan that had my dick standing at attention. My right hand slid around back and pulled her tighter into me, all that beautiful flesh just a few cotton threads away from my bare palm.

Tully gasped and shivered as I hit the spot below her ear, pulling back and breaking the moment. My hands froze. We stared at each other in the dark, wide-eyed and breathing hard for what felt like an eternity. Then Tully’s hands left my shoulders and grabbed for the top of her towel again. I forced my fingers to loosen their grip, which allowed her to take a tiny step backward.

“That rug on your face is ticklish,” she sputtered, face beet red.

I flexed my fingers, having to remind them that we were no longer touching Tully. No matter how badly I wanted to pick her up and toss her over my shoulder and carry her to my bedroom, that wasn’t in the cards for us. I had divorce papers that said so.

I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to remove the memory of her soft skin from my lips. “You should feel it between your legs, princess.”

Tully gasped, but didn’t look offended at my crass suggestion. If anything, she looked like she was regretting taking a step back. Then her nose went in the air and I knew I’d lost.

“Listen, Colson. We have to work together this week. I don’t think…this”—she motioned between us with her index finger, even while she clutched her towel like a lifeline—“ is going to help things. Let’s just cool things off, okay?”

I nodded, even when I firmly disagreed. “We never did have an issue with chemistry.” It was everything else about living a life together we had issues with. But I left that part out. I was too tired at the moment to rehash old arguments.

Tully nodded like everything had been decided. She took a sidestep down the hallway toward her room. “Agreed. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

I lifted a hand in some kind of agreement, and I waited until I heard her door click closed before I dared move a muscle. My forehead thumped against the bathroom doorframe. My shower would have to be a cold one tonight if I was going to get any sleep.

“Why did I insist she move in here?” I asked the wall.

I was tired and cranky and in no shape for having fun at this stupid fundraiser I’d suggested. All week I’d gotten up at the crack of dawn to head to the fire station and staying until I couldn’t keep my eyes open. No, not to work my shift. I’d been escaping to avoid running into Tully. She’d meet me around nine every morning and we’d spend the day building all the stations for the fundraiser, which was pure torture. The woman was hot on any given day, but put a tool belt on her and a power tool in her hands? Fucking irresistible. And every firefighter in this station had a crush on my ex-wife now. Even Captain.

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