“I’ve been in Arizona for the last couple of years. I’ve un-acclimated, and it’ll take more than thirty seconds to walk to the springs and shed multiple layers of clothes.”
“Just strip in the car. That’ll keep everything warm and dry for the ride home anyway.” Figuring she’d take his lead, he removed his shoulder brace and peeled off his shirt. She hadn’t so much as budged, and if anything, her lower lip stuck out farther. “What?”
“You,” she said, gesturing at him with a vague swing of her arm.
“Just me overall? Or is there a specific grievance you’d like to address?”
“Yes.”
He chuckled. Julie was hardly ever grumpy. Occasionally, though, the ice and snow brought it out in her. Without bending, Gavin kicked off one of his sneakers and then used his free toes to kick off the other.
“Are you sure there’s not some other way I can repay you?” Julie wrapped her arms around herself as if the cold had crept into the cab she’d kept plenty toasty by continuing to blast the heater. “A warmer way?”
“We made a deal, and if it takes carrying you over and dumping you into the water to make you fulfill your end, don’t think I won’t do it.”
“You won’t.” A hint of smugness crept into her features. “Because then you’d hurt your shoulder even more, and your team needs you.”
“Sounds like you’d better come of your own volition, then.” The unzipping of his pants echoed through the quiet, and for a few seconds, his fingers froze on the waistband. Silly, given that he and Julie had been in swimsuits together countless times through the years. Not to mention that picture on the beach where neither of them had on a shred of clothing.
You know that’d be a lot different now. He cleared his throat and tugged down his pants. He wasn’t going to overthink and ruin the thing he’d been looking forward to all day long. Not going to ask which swimsuit Julie had chosen, either. “I’ll bring up last night and the movie and face mask you forced upon me if I have to.”
“Grr,” Julie fired back, and then she began shimmying out of her clothes. At the reveled hot-pink bikini top, he barely resisted pumping his fist. She’d gone bold.
With that assessment made, he averted his eyes. Out of respect. And okay, with the weird vibes he’d been experiencing around Jules this trip, he didn’t fully trust himself not to ogle her right now.
At least I get to see her in her sexy swimsuit before Kory does. Evidently, his mind was hell-bent on betraying him tonight. Since he didn’t think losing a toe or two to frostbite would up his game, he shoved his feet into his untied sneakers, and Julie did the same with her snow boots.
“On three…?” she asked, and adrenaline coursed through his veins, similar to being on the field when the center snapped the ball.
“Uh, perhaps I should hold on to the keys.” He’d rather die than admit to the amount of alarm that spiked as she whipped her head in his direction and glared. In high school, she’d lost a set at this very place, and while it was one of those incidents they never talked about to this day—thanks to the huge fight it’d caused—she also spent a considerable amount of time rushing around her place in search of her car and apartment keys.
Over the phone, even with thousands of miles between them, she’d always ask him if he, by chance, knew where she’d left him. “Let’s just call it my insurance policy against you faking me out and leaving me here,” he quickly added.
“Oh.” Her laugh carried across the cab and struck him in the chest. “I didn’t think of that, or I so would’ve done it.”
Phew. Nice save, Frost. More of a redirection and softening the truth as opposed to a total fabrication. He wiggled his fingers, same way she’d done to him earlier in the restaurant. The keys jingled as she placed them in his palm, and he jammed them deep into the zippered pocket of his swim trunks.
“One,” she said, curling her fingers around the door handle.
“Two,” he chimed in.
“Three,” they shouted at the same time, and then they were rushing out into the freezing cold, snow crunching under their shoes as they ran for the closest section of steamy blue water.
…
“See? It’s nice and toasty.”
Julie clenched her teeth so they’d stop chattering. “It’s frickin’ freezing. I’ll never recover, never.”
Gavin rolled his lips inward, fighting a laugh at her expense, and she considered scooping up a snowball and hurling it at his head. Or his perfect ripped torso. Don’t get her started on the pecs or the abs or that V that made women do foolish things.
Never did she ever think she’d be that woman, especially with this particular guy, but here she was. Drooling. Imagining running her fingers over the dips and grooves of his muscles—for scientific purposes, naturally. When else would she be half naked next to a guy so attractive that her corneas literally struggled to process the amount of sexy?
“It’s so unfair. You eat an enormous burrito and chips and queso and still have an eight-pack.” She patted the spot over her belly button. “Whereas my food just sits right here on my tummy. I should’ve grabbed my full-coverage swimsuit.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gavin said. “You look hot.”
“Well, I’m cold.”
The water rippled as Gavin moved closer, and she lost the ability to swallow. Steam rose off his skin as droplets slid down his body. Another point for water, it plastered his trunks to his thighs and—shit. She’d accidentally glanced at his bulge.
Worse, she seemed to have lost the ability to look away. Why hadn’t anyone warned her that was a possibility? People only spread around that rumor about silly faces getting stuck that way.
What the hell, brain? And eyes, you, too. You’re not getting off the hook.
Between the hot spring, her quickening pulse, and the word stamina somersaulting through her brain, her chilliness faded away.
“I’ve got a brain, too, you know,” Gavin said, and she forced her eyes to his. Mischief and amusement glittered in the deep brown depths.
“Well, if you want people to notice that, you might have to use it once in a while.” It’d popped right out, and it wasn’t until his jaw dropped that she worried it sounded harsher than she’d meant it to. “No, wait. That was supposed to be a joke.”
“Supposed to be?” Gavin swiped a hand through the water, sending a stream her way.
Julie flinched but continued advancing toward him. Call this reason number two hundred and seven she failed at flirting. “I was totally kidding.” She looped her arms around his neck so she could ensure she had his full attention. “I’m just saying that with your body on display, it wasn’t immediately evident that…”