Page 36 of Only in Your Dreams

Melody

Seeing as he spent the better part of the night fidgeting, I expect to find Zac passed out cold beside me in the morning. He can’t have slept more than an hour or two, but when I wrench open my eyes, he’s already gone.

Even with a wild animal on the prowl—God, the way its eyes shone in the dark makes me shudder out of my skin—there had been something so comforting in being sandwiched together on this air mattress.

Maybe it’s that, despite his best efforts, he let that controlled façade of his crack open last night. He was terrified by what he saw in the woods, and after spending a decade resenting him, the whole experience was incredibly humanizing.

Last night, he wasn’t the guy who broke my heart. He was the boy who made my heart squeeze every time he’d look at me.

I gather a fresh shirt from Summer’s pile of clothes and the pair of leggings Zac washed off for me after the chipmunk incident. The campsite is eerily quiet when I surface from our tent. I limp toward the lake, managing to put a little weight on my injured ankle today.

Zac probably went out for a walk along the road like I tried to do yesterday, hoping for a car to pass by. I may as well take the opportunity to wash up in the lake while he’s—

Oh.

Oh my—

God. Truly. I’m watching an underwater god surface from Atlantis.

Zac isn’t walking along the road. He’s out in the waist-deep water, his back to me, wet streaks running down the slopes of his bare skin and…

I’ve seen him shirtless. That comes with the territory of living my teenaged summers with him and Parker, at this very campsite. But it was never like this.

Hewas never like this. He’d been mouth-watering then, a teenaged fantasy come to life. Now, though?

That’s a man effortlessly pushing strands of soaked hair off his face, like he’s in some kind of pornographic shampoo commercial. Every inch of him glistens, muscles bunching as he bends to splash more water on his face, and his hips bob higher in the water, all tight and dimpled lower back.

He’s naked. Not a stitch of clothing on, and I’m on the edge of my fucking seat, willing the water to part like the Red Sea.

I’m relieved.Relievedto know that I can feel that kind of want, and this hot, near painful lust, so soon after my breakup. I can get Connor out of my head and my system. It’s possible.

Still, though. I shouldn’t be… A tingling sensation shoots down the length of my legs. Zac raises an arm to ruffle his hair and is there anything hotter than a man’s broad shoulders, muscles rolling as he moves?

I really shouldn’t be staring—

Zac glances over his shoulder.

Shit.

“Mel?”

I swivel, start limping back to our campsite like my life depends on it. Like there’s even the slightest chance he hasn’t noticed me shamelessly gawking him.

Problem is, my ankle is still messed up, the freaking traitor. I barely make it a few feet by the time Zac splashes out of the water behind me.

“Melody, wait.”

Please don’t still be naked. Please don’t still be naked—okay, maybe a little bit naked—

I turn, plastering a practiced, nonchalant smile. I don’t tend to smile at this guy, but I’m hoping it’s at least weird enough to help deflect from this disastrous situation.

Zac is tugging a long-sleeve shirt down his body, clutching a towel around his waist. And damn him, it does nothing to dull the pulse between my thighs. The shirt is sticking to every wet dip and rise of his torso. His dark lashes are clumping together, water dripping from his hair, and eventhat’senough to amplify the ridiculous fluttering in my stomach. He is just…

He’s really something else.

Zac nods at the towel I have slung over my arm. “You going in?”

“You and I had the same idea, it seems,” I say, coughing when my voice comes out paper thin. “But on second thought, I don’t think my ankle is up for it. So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll head back to my trusty air mattress—”

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