He offered to make her scrambled eggs or grilled cheese, his two specialties, but she told him she didn’t deserve warm food after the mechanic said the ’Vette would be out of commission for at least a week.
She was acting like doing one bad thing could never be absolved, and it was getting on his nerves. Only someone who had never done anything wrong before would think borrowing a car deserved this level of self-flagellation.
He broke down and used the stupid three-knock system to request entry, browbeaten enough to employ her ridiculous household rule.
“Absolutely not,” she shouted over the noise of the shower.
“Clara, this is next-level crazy, even for you. The doctor said you shouldn’t raise your arms above your waist until the whiplash subsides. That’s half your body. I’m the one who has to be around you all the time. If you stink, it’s my nose that suffers.”
The sound of the water abruptly cut out. “But you’ll see me naked. Again. It breaks the guidelines for harmonious cohabitation.”
“I saw at least twenty naked bodies this week alone shooting for the website and nothing happened.” It was an occupational hazard. Years of on- and off-camera escapades had dulled his sexual senses. Even though they had worked with gorgeous women every day over the last few weeks it was like he was wearing earmuffs or dirty glasses during filming; nothing penetrated.
“I cannot express enough how your bruised and battered form is not going to send me into a sexual tailspin. This is all very simple. You’re hurt. You smell. Let me in there. It’ll be so impersonal you’ll think you ran through a car wash.”
A moment later, Clara opened the door, holding a towel around herself with one hand.
The tiny bathroom was easily ten degrees hotter than the hallway and full of steam. He blinked a few times to clear his vision. The combined effect of the environment and the sight of Clara with damp hair, her skin beaded with water was . . . arresting.
“Holy shit.” Her cleavage made him see stars.
Clara pulled the towel tighter around her breasts. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that the harder she pulled the material, the more he wanted to drown in the valley between her luscious tits.
Okay. So he might have miscalculated. Turned out he wasn’t totally immune. He’d forgotten that being on set meant lots of people, working and talking and eating. It meant cameras and lights and costumes and makeup and other signals of artifice.
The intimacy of seeing Clara in such a small, heated space made him want to peel off that towel and lick every inch of her.
Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from her to pull himself together. He was probably scaring her. She’s wounded, you asshole. She needs help, not you slobbering all over her.
He closed his eyes and thought about sitting in traffic.
He thought about getting his teeth cleaned. Sitting in traffic while getting his teeth cleaned. There we go. That did it.
He turned back around to find her with a drop of water running down the slope of her nose. His heart squeezed.
“Sorry,” he said again around his thick tongue. “Overestimated my own endurance.”
“What do you mean?” Her fragile voice broke through his lust stupor, at least for a moment.
He finally took in the blue and purple splotches blooming on her neck. He straightened his shoulders with renewed resolve to take care of her. “Just that I should have prepared myself more before I came in so that I could help you without sporting a rampant erection.”
Clara’s eyes wandered to his groin at his words. When she licked her top lip, the tiny gesture made him almost double over.
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Traffic. Dentist. Grandma Pearl.
Clara’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything. Honest.” She kept her eyes firmly trained on the sink behind him.
“Let’s get you clean.” He remembered he was going to have to get in the shower with her. Naked. The guidelines did not cover this shit.
Clara seemed to have come to the same conclusion because she’d directed her gaze to the tile floor.
“We don’t have to do this,” he said, taking the coward’s way out. “I could call Jill.” Yes, Jill. Her aunt wouldn’t be in danger of coming in her pants over Clara’s convalescing body.
Clara’s wet hair dripped into a little puddle at their feet. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Are you fine?”
“Yep.” Josh swallowed twice. “Fine.”
She’s just a naked woman. Just another naked woman. Seen one, you’ve seen ’em all. No big deal.
He ripped off his T-shirt like a Band-Aid. If he lingered in the act of undressing, his cock would continue to get the wrong idea. As he reached for the zipper of his jeans he made the colossal mistake of looking at Clara. The spark in her eyes, the hunger that she didn’t know how to hide made his hands shake.
This is how I die.
He left his briefs on.
They would be clingy and uncomfortable once they got wet, but even that thin layer of cotton felt like a shield against the siren song emitting from Clara’s skin.
He turned the knob to restart the hot water, holding his hand under the spray until it was warm enough to step inside the glass doors. “Ready?”
She held on to the towel for another long moment but then gave him a tiny nod and released it, draping the material over a hook by the sink before reaching for the hand he offered to help her step inside. There was about a foot of space in front of him for her to slide into.
Have mercy. He’d thought he’d be safe back here, out of the direct line of sight of her tits, but the sweet dip of her waist into her perfect peach of an ass was almost worse. Especially considering there was now only about four inches between his cotton-covered cock and her soft, slippery body.
When she turned to look at him over her shoulder, probably because he was breathing like an asthmatic, he ground out, “Turn around.”
He hadn’t meant for it to come out a gruff command, but he’d never get through this if he had to make eye contact with her.
Josh needed to unlearn his entire persona. Over the years he’d honed God-given charisma into a finely crafted weapon. He’d wielded his charm without thought for so long that Josh Darling became a natural extension of him, as unconscious as breathing. But he couldn’t risk flirting with Clara, not now that he knew he might be falling for her.
He picked up her floral shampoo and poured some into his hand. Her head was a safe place to start. Nothing erotic about her hair. Besides how silky it felt.
“Close your eyes.” The words felt jagged in his throat. He massaged his fingers across her temples with quick, efficient movements.