Page 27 of Only in Your Dreams

Anyway, it doesn’t matter.

I turn my gaze to the canopy of trees above us as he moves down the path, and cross my arms over my chest to resist the urge to wrap them around his neck. The effect is that it probably looks like he’s carting around a grumpy, sleep-deprived toddler.

“If I ever meet this ex of yours, there’s a good chance he’s face down on the pavement two minutes in.”

My stomach squeezes at the promise in his voice. “How very primitive of you. Since when do you fight?”

Unlike so many of the football players we’d gone to school with, Zac had never been prone to aggression, not even on the field. He was always as gentle as they came, and I loved him for it.

Zac marches us across the soaked campsite toward our tent. “Since never. But I grew up surrounded by guys who’d pummel each other over a ball. I picked up a few tricks.”

“Could your delicate quarterback hands handle giving out a good pummeling?”

“I’d be willing to find out.”

Inside our tent, Zac deposits me onto my mattress before rummaging inside the cooler.

“For the patient.” He waits until I wipe the mud off my fingers and hands me one of Brooks’s chocolate chip cookies. Then he sorts through his bag to pull out a white t-shirt. “Don’t you dare try to move, Melody. I’ll be back in a second.”

Zac returns by the time I’ve finished my cookie, the t-shirt in his hand now completely soaked. He crouches at the foot of the mattress. “Alright, Mel. Here’s the deal: you’re covered in mud.”

I look down at myself, at the thick layer coating my leggings. “What an astute observation, Zachary. Gold star for you.”

“Anyone ever tell you you’re an absolute brat?”

I smile innocently. “No one whose opinion matters.”

“Case and point. Do you plan on spending the rest of the day covered in mud?”

“No?”

“Then I’m going to help you change.”

I cough out a laugh. “In your dreams—”

“Believe it or not,” he says wryly. “When I dream about you naked, you’re not usually so hobbled, and you’re a lot more enthusiastic about it.”

I choke on my laugh. When he…

When he dreams about me naked? What the hell?

“While you take a minute to digest that,” Zac says with a smirk. “I’m going to help you out of these clothes. Okay?” I gape at him so long that he sighs. “Melody, I can’t do it unless you agree to it. Can I help you change?”

I eye my busted ankle, now visibly swollen twice its size. There’s no way I can shimmy out of these second-skin leggings on my own without excruciating pain.

“Fine,” I say tightly. “But for the record, I’m doing it with prejudice. And I forbid you to add this to your spank bank. Which supposedly involves made-up images of me naked? What the hell’s that about?”

“I’d be inclined to judge anyone who doesn’t picture you naked. Have you seen yourself?” He flicks his eyebrows when I only stare. “Now, be a good girl for Doctor Zac, yeah? I’ll make everything feel good.”

I make a bit of a choking sound.

I don’t know what’s happened over these ten years apart. Maybe the distance changed his perception of me as a kid sister, or maybe he hasn’t got his dick wet in a long time, but something’s different.

We’d never flirted back then. It had always been as platonic as it could get until I opened my big mouth and asked him to kiss me. Well, whatever’s going on, Zac seems to be enjoying the hell out of watching me try to figure it out. He rolls his lips together, eyes crinkled up in a smile. It’s as close to his old self as I’ve seen him.

“Arms up for me.”

After a split second’s hesitation in which his waiting hands hover by my hips, I lift my arms. He jimmies Brooks’s baggy sweater out from under my ass and peels it off. I only get one single moment of gratitude for the tank top I’m wearing underneath before noticing the pulse at Zac’s jaw, the way he seems to force his eye off me.

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