Page 24 of The Summer Intern

Thenextdaywasmy day off, and I figured I’d wait at least one day before confronting Matt about the kiss.Just to let him cool down and all that, not because I was afraid to confront him.Not that afraid, anyway.

My only plans involved a new hair dyeing kit and a mediocre shower, so I was surprised to hear a knock on the door a few minutes after Oliver left.I trudged over to open it and found Matt standing there, squinting at the sun.He had a few days’ growth of beard, which made him look a bit more like himself and less like the hot sex god I’d accidentally kissed.Okay, fine, purposely kissed.

“All right, since it’s your day off, I thought I’d teach you what a kayak is,” he said.

“No thank you.I have an appointment with a jar of rose frost hair dye and my—” I lost my train of thought mid-sentence as he stretched his arms over his head, giving me a nice glimpse of tattooed abs beneath the hem of his shirt.Fuck, the sex god was still in play.And he didn’t look mad at me.Why had I spent the past twelve hours constructing an apology if he wasn’t even going to be angry?

“Come on, Case.It’ll be fun.”He stuffed his hands in his pockets and bounced on his toes, grinning like a little kid on Christmas.

“Fine.”

He tilted his head.“But you haven’t even heard my very convincing argument yet.”

“The sooner I give in, the sooner we get this over with and I can relax, right?”

“Yep,” he said, still frowning, probably because this was the first time I’d ever agreed with him.“All right, well, I want to make sure you know what a kayak is because it’s a big part of camp life, and you keep calling them rowboats.”

“They are rowboats.Boats that you row.”

“Technically, it’s called paddling,” he corrected as we walked side-by-side down the path.He bumped me gently with his shoulder, and it felt affectionate, but maybe he was just uncoordinated.

“Should I be calling them paddle boats?”

“Oh my god,” he groaned.“Now you’re just fucking with me.But I will not get angry.Ben told me you think I’m grumpy.”He turned away from me and unlocked the boat shed, leaving me standing there, having a mini panic attack about what else Ben had told him.

I paused at the door to the shed, which was in a bit better shape than the art shed.That seemed wrong.“Do we have to go on the water?Like if I start just agreeing they’re kayaks, can I go back to dyeing my hair?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, lifting up a kayak like it weighed nothing and holding it out to me.“You must.It’s the only way to understand camp life.”

I stepped into the building to take the little boat from his hand, then yelped and dropped it, tumbling forward onto my hands and knees.How the hell had he been holding that heavy boat with only one hand?“What the hell?Why is it so heavy?”

He burst out laughing, holding out a hand to me.“It’s not.Maybe you need to work out more?”

I growled at him, lunging at him in a rage just as he tried to help me up, which threw him off balance, and he teetered on one foot for a moment before we went flying backward into the pile of life jackets stacked against the rear wall.I landed on top of him, straddling his hips, hands braced on the firm muscles of his chest.

We froze like that for a beat, neither of us moving.Hell, I hardly dared to breathe.

“Fuck,” he groaned.

“Sorry!I mean, I didn’t hurt you, did I?”I started to stand up, but his hands shot out, gripping my waist roughly, holding me where I was.

“Casey.Stop fucking squirming.”He bucked his hips upward and twisted around, slamming me down onto my back on the life vests, and I let out a little whimper, arching up and pressing my body against his, which was maybe not the reaction he was looking for.

His breathing was rough as he stared down at me, still not doing anything, just staring down at me, his blue eyes dark and stormy.

“You’re fucking wearing my shirt,” he growled.

I blinked.“I mean, if you wanted it back, you could have just asked.You didn’t have to tackle me.”

He blew out a frustrated breath.“I don’t want it back.”

My hand went to his chest, palm landing on a nipple piercing, which reminded me of a very important question.“Do you have any other piercings?”

“That’s what you’re asking right now?”He shifted, bracing a big hand on either side of my head.I really hoped he couldn’t feel how hard being manhandled was making me.I was flustered and turned on and confused all at once as he pressed his hips down, and … shit, was he hard, too?

“It’s a pertinent question."

Matt's lips tilted.“You know, all the time you were staring at me, I thought you were cataloging ways to irritate me.Instead, you were thinking about whether or not my cock is pierced?”

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