Page 49 of The Wedding Wrecker

I ended the call just as the bathroom door opened. Steam billowed out around James as he emerged in just his sweats, water still beading on his chest and abs that were, fine, yes, still spectacular. A drop of water rolled down his stomach,disappearing into the waistband of his sweats, and I forced myself to look away before I did something stupid. Like lick it off.

Did hot guys not know how towels worked? Or was he just hoping the whole glistening wet body with rivulets of water draining down toward his waist would do dark things to my mind?

He glanced at me and I immediately snapped my eyes shut, doing an unconvincing job of pretending to already be asleep.

Why was I pretending to sleep?

Between the suddenness of what had happened and Maggie’s call, I hadn’t even had time to process what I really wanted.

Had I wanted…thatto continue? My body certainly had. Hell, I could still feel a warm, pleasant pulsing between my legs and a tingling aura of arousal thumping just beneath my skin. But where did that moment lead? Would it mean taking us from pretend to real? And was I actually willing to put even a small piece of my heart in his hands again after how the last time played out?

Or were we planning to classify it as casual fun? I could do casual fun.In theory.Would I really be able to do things like that with James andnotstart getting confused, though?

My eyes were squeezed shut as I heard the tantalizing sound of his towel dropping to the ground. Despite my better judgment, I opened my eyes and turned to look.

Andgoodness…His ass was a thing of pure beauty. His back was broad and tapered. His legs were long and chiseled. He lifted oneleg and stepped into a thin pair of gray boxer briefs, and then began to turn.

I whipped my head and body around so fast I might have given myself whiplash, slammed my eyes shut, and tried to lay perfectly still.

Who just drops their towel when their not-girlfriend is laying in a bed right there? So what if I was pretending to be asleep?

The only explanation was that he knew exactly what he was doing. He knew his ass was the stuff of dreams, and he was hoping I looked. It was the only explanation.

Bastard.

I felt him slide into the blankets beside me. I could almost picture him lingering there, half propped-up as he faced me and considered saying something. I waited, heart hammering, but he didn't reach for me. Didn't try to continue what we'd started.

I almost wanted him to.

And then I felt him lay down fully.

Part of me was relieved.The smarter part of me.The part that remembered how much it hurt last time.

The rest of me wanted to climb on top of him and pick up exactly where we'd left off.

I heard him shift, followed by a soft sigh. The mattress dipped as he rolled over, and I held my breath, wondering if he'd reach for me.

He didn't.

I lay there in the dark, hyper-aware of every movement, every breath. The distance between us felt both too big and not big enough.

Eventually, his breathing evened out. I stayed awake far too long, wondering if he was really asleep or just pretending like I was.

I was sixteen again,learning to drive stick shift in my dad's ancient Volkswagen. The gearshift kept sticking, and I couldn't get it into first gear no matter how hard I pushed and pulled.

"You have to be gentle with it," Dream-Dad said from the passenger seat. "Feel for the sweet spot."

I jerked the stick back and forth, growing frustrated. The car made strange sounds and shook, almost as if it was laughing at my futile attempts to figure this thing out. "It won't go!"

"Maybe try rotating it a little," Dream-Dad suggested. "Sometimes you have to work it around until you find the right position."

I tried moving the stick shift in circles, but that just made the shaking and laughing worse.

The shifter was warm against my hand. What a nice feature. I’d heard of heated seats and heated steering wheels. But heated stick shifts?Fancy.My handswerecold. So I wrapped my other hand around it, just to enjoy the warmth.

Even if I couldn’t quite get the car to move the way I wanted, there was something I enjoyed about playing with the thing.I felt my Dream-Dad fade out of existence, because that sort of thing definitely happened all the time. It was just me and the stick shift, which I had given up understanding. I was just absently rubbing my fingertips over the tip of it now as my hand slid up and down its length.

The car had stopped shaking now and it was almost like it was trying to talk to me.

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