Page 38 of Chasing the Sun
My body was on fire as I scurried as quickly as my feet could take me.
“Elodie.” A thick, booming voice stopped me.Hisvoice. Only this time it was filled with surprised annoyance rather than the desperate groan of a man about to orgasm.
I jumped with a yelp, turning toward him. His head was poked out of the doorway, bare shoulders on display. He was wearing nothing but a towel, hastily wrapped around his hips. I swallowed hard, envying the terry cloth as it hung on for dear life.
A drop of water tracked the cut V of his waist, slow and deliberate, before soaking into the white cotton. I told myself I wasn’t watching. That I wasn’t standing here like an idiot, rooted to the floor, pulse hammering in my ears.
Thick water droplets clung to the tips of Cal’s hair, darkening it to nearly black. The hall light cast a moody glow, but I could see his sharp gaze freeze on me.
“Oh!” I cleared my throat. “Hey, Cal.”Fancy meeting you here ...
His dark gaze narrowed, his eyebrows suspicious slashes across his eyes. For a moment he just stared, his demeanor clouding with intensity as though he knew I had violated his sacred privacy.
Could he tell? Could he read the thoughts tumbling from my mind?
I’ve been actively imagining your dick in your hands for the last several minutes.
I blinked, hoping that seventh-grade drama class wouldn’t fail me and I could act my way out of the world’s most awkward encounter. I lifted my hand with a jerky wave.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. “No one is allowed back here.”
My mouth opened, but I snapped it closed again. I pointed in the direction of the front desk. “Helen sent me back here. Levi left his hoodie at my place. I was just returning it.”
“It’s late.” His eyes flicked to the black hoodie and back to my face before he sighed and shook his head. “Why that kid thinks he needs a hoodie in June is beyond me.”
I didn’t respond because my brain was still back at the bar. I was lost in the memory of how his hand had landed on me, warm and steady, fingers pressing just enough to ground me before curling against the small of my back.
A warning. A claim. A reaction maybe he hadn’t even thought through. I’d played it off and acted like it didn’t shake me, but it had.
I’d danced for him.
Maybe that was it—the way I moved, the way I let the music carry me, all while knowing exactly where he was in that bar.
I wanted him to look. I wanted him to feel it, but I hadn’t expectedthis.
I hadn’t expected to come home and hear my name on his lips, groaned like a prayer, like something pulled out of him by force.
My pulse jumped, betraying me.
I gripped the hoodie tighter, hoping he wouldn’t see the way my fingers were shaking.
I blinked, willing my brain back to the moment. “That’s kids for you, I guess.” I reluctantly held the crumple of black fabric out, unable to step forward.
His moody eyes flicked across the hallway as he stepped out of his room, wearing nothing but that low-slung white towel. Heat licked up my spine. He wasn’t just built—he was carved, like something meant to be worshipped in dimcandlelight. Broad shoulders, every inch of him honed from discipline and something far more dangerous than just hard work at the gym. His chest, all ridges and valleys of muscle, tapered into a trim waist. A constellation of old scars mapped their way across his skin, stark against the ink that wrapped his biceps and climbed the hard cut of his forearm toward his hand.
Not clean, perfect lines—his tattoos wove through rough, jagged scars, ink bleeding into flesh that had been torn and stitched back together more times than I wanted to consider. Some deep and thick, others thin and raised, a history that spoke of battles I would never hear about. The contrast between them—the art and the damage—was staggering. Proof that he had been torn open and put back together again.
I swallowed, pulse hammering. He was devastating, and I hated that I couldn’t stop looking. The space between us felt too small, the air too thick.
Cal reached for the hoodie, his fingertips burning a path across the back of my hand as he dragged them across my skin.
An awkward laugh snagged in my throat. “Levi did great today—I worked him hard and he didn’t complain once.”
What the hell? Why am I making small talk about his son when he’snaked?
“Okay, bye!” My cheeks flamed, and I swiveled on my heels to make my escape without looking back. I wound through the maze of the Drifted Spirit, beelining it toward the front door.
“Find what you needed?” Helen’s voice was full of honey as I rushed past her.
