Page 9 of Stuck with the Grump

I pounded my fist against Clarke’s door but there was still no answer from inside. I swore and shoved open the door, both hoping he was naked and hoping he wasn’t. Even though there were thirteen years between us, I could admire his body all I wanted.

“Clarke!” I shouted, shaking his shoulder. “Clarke, you need to wake up. There’s a tree in the living room.”

“Go ‘way,” he said, shoving my hand away from his shoulder. “Sleeping.”

“How can you possibly be sleeping when a fucking tree fell through the house?” My voice was getting louder as I shook him harder. “Clarke, I don’t know what to do and the entire living room is getting soaked.”

There was another crash as the wind blew down something else. I shook him harder as I considered shoving him out of the bed and dumping ice-cold water over him. Clarke groaned and rolled over, blinking sleepily. A small frown marred his face as he looked at me.

“Why are you in here?”

“I don’t know what the hell to do! Fuck! If you just woke up when I tried to wake you up the first time, I wouldn’t still be in here.”

There was another crash and Clarke sprang out of bed, shoving me behind him. I rolled my eyes but as I did, I caught sight of his muscled back and wondered what it would look like with scratch marks running along it.

“You know, this whole alpha male defensive thing is cute, but I already know what the crashing is and I’m the one with the bat.”

Clarke turned to face me, looking at the bat in my hand. “Why do you have that?”

“So I can beat you to a pulp for wasting time when there is a fucking tree in the living room.”

He smirked and reached out to ruffle my hair. “Seems like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

Before I could take a swing at him with the bat, he was hurrying out the door and down the hall. I glowered after him, wondering if I should crawl back into bed and leave him to take care of the problem. The better part of me—the one not still angry with him—propelled me back into the living room.

“There’s a chainsaw in the garage but trying to cut down the tree when it’s raining is going to take forever and I’ll probably get hypothermia. I think there were some wood panels there. You need to go put on a pair of shoes and start gathering up anything else breakable. Take it into another room. Close all the doors to the other rooms so we can try to keep as much heat inside as possible.”

“Bossy,” I muttered but did as he said, tossing the bat to the side and searching for my boots. Thankfully, they had been tucked away in a closet and did not get showered with tiny pieces of glass.

Clarke disappeared back into his room for a moment and emerged once more, fully dressed, and ready to deal with the situation at hand. I picked my way through the broken glass and over tree limbs to the bookshelves. Rain pounded against my side, little icy needles pricking my skin. I blinked rapidly, trying to keep the water out of my eyes as I grabbed all the pictures I could carry. I sealed them away in my parents’ bedroom and shut the door before making sure all the other doors were closed.

Clarke stood by the hole in the wall, balancing on the tree trunk with nails held carefully in his mouth. He stretched the tarp to one side before looking at me.

“I’m going to need a little bit of help,” he said around the mouthful of nails.

I nodded, shivering from the cold as I climbed up the tree trunk beside him. He pointed at one corner of the tarp and I pressed it against the wall. His body framed mine, his chest pressing against my back as he leaned around me to nail the tarp to the wall. I could feel my blood racing at the hard outline of his body.

“Other side now,” Clarke said, his hand on one of my hips as he nudged me in the right direction.

We repeated the process, nailing the tarp down before moving to another section of the hole. Clarke crowded me, his hot breath on my neck. Not once in my life had I thought I would be turned on while getting pelted by rain and covering a hole in the wall, but here I was, wet for two very different reasons.

“You should go have a shower,” Clarke said, looking down at me. “Go warm up while there’s still electricity to get the water warm.”

“You should probably shower then too,” I said, facing him and looking at the way his soaked shirt clung to his muscled torso.

Now or never,I told myself as I pushed past my reservations and placed my hands on his toned stomach. His muscles clenched beneath my fingers, fire coming to life in his eyes.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice rough.

“Nothing,” I said, trailing my fingers closer to his waistband. “Although, I was thinking that we might save more water if we showered together. After all, shouldn’t we be trying to save the planet so storms like this don’t happen again?”

Clarke didn’t say anything, a muscle in his jaw twitching as he watched me. Though his eyes were bright, I could see the internal battle he was having with himself.

“Bad idea,” he said finally, reaching up to twist a tendril of my hair around his finger. “You and I have a lot of life experiences between us.”

“What you’re really saying is that there is a big age difference between us, and you’re scared.”

Clarke smirked and leaned close to me, his hands coming to rest around my waist as he pulled me close. “Trust me, Leigh, nothing about me is scared of you.”

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