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“Whatever you say.” He rolled his lips in and got himself under control while she moved around him to straighten up the kitchen from their dinner. “To answer, I’ve got boxers on today.”
She looked over her shoulder at him and he didn’t miss when her gaze flicked down to his jeans and back. The move aimed to be subtle. If he’d blinked, he’d have missed it—but he caught it.
She resumed towel drying the plates they used, returning them to the cabinet. “If you want to shower and sleep in them, it’s fine. It’s just shorts. I’ll shower when you finish. It’ll give me the chance to clean up and get the room ready. I need to get up early tomorrow to visit the office about the air and water.”
The shower did little to cool him off once he stepped out and dried off. The air conditioning was on. He felt it in the bedroom when he moved in there to sit on the side of her bed while she took her shower.
When he came out, she was in the living room and didn’t even look up at him. She said to leave his clothes at the laundry door, and she’d start it before coming to bed. He hoped he didn’t make her uncomfortable by wearing only his underwear, but she was the one who suggested it.
The bathroom door clicked when he settled on the bed. The sounds of the shower filtered through the walls of the apartment.
He smelled like her now. At least partially. Not having his own bath products left him using hers, which didn’t match the pineapple upside down cake scent she wore throughout the day. Possibly a perfume. Her body wash and shampoo smelled like coconut and vanilla. At least it complimented the perfume and didn’t blend to a stomach-turning concoction some women wore.
He lay back on the bed and shut his eyes, listening to the sound of the water.
They’d had fun tonight, but the reality of what she faced with her unwanted admirer still weighed heavily on his mind. If she had a genuine stalker, he needed to convince her to return home, but he didn’t know how. She had limited opportunities to continue her education down there at a physical school. He didn’t know enough about her career path to know if she could do it online, but he assumed she’d considered that option already.
The water turned off, and he listened to her moving around in the bathroom before coming out and moving to the kitchen, running the tap, and then moving to the laundry.
He couldn’t see her, and didn’t know what all she was doing, but knew she was headed his way when the laundry door shut.
When he heard a sharp intake of air, he opened his eyes to find her standing a couple of feet away from the side of the bed, staring at his bare chest. He didn’t make a sound to let her know he was awake, not wanting to embarrass her as her bright malachite eyes did a slow perusal of his bare chest to his abs.
He knew he had a nice physique. He wasn’t cocky about it. He simply worked hard to achieve it because it made him feel good about himself. Lifted weights in his dorm. Ran around the perimeter of the campus frequently. Went to a local gym occasionally if time permitted, which in the last year, it hadn’t.
When her eyes traveled from his stomach and down to his boxers, he needed to give her a sign he was awake before another part of him did the job for him. Her dilated pupils and change in breathing let him know she wasn’t unaffected by his appearance, and that knowledge made his cock twitch. He needed to do something before they both ended up embarrassed.
He shifted, groaning, and reached up to run a hand over his face as if waking up. As if he’d fallen asleep while waiting.
She flinched, and he slowly sat up.
“Finished?”
Her face appeared redder than earlier, and she cleared her throat, toying with the hem of her sleep shorts. The same little striped pair she wore on FaceTime one night, only in white and lime green instead of baby blue. The green matching spaghetti strap tank top did little to hide her response to seeing him half naked. He turned his gaze away before she caught him staring at her breasts. He’d overheard her complaining to Riley about men doing that.
“Yeah, the clothes are in the dryer.” She looked at the nightstand.
“Dryer? Didn’t you need to wash them?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“I threw them in when I jumped in the shower. I had a shower this morning and washed my hair and all, so I only needed to wash the day off my body. The hot water would last for that.” She shrugged. “I didn’t want to wait up to move the clothes between the washer and dryer, and the cycle isn’t long. Oh, and it shouldn’t get too hot. I’m running the air-dry cycle. I think that puts out less heat? I dunno for sure.”
“Fair enough. What side do you want?”
She twisted her toes on the area rug that took up most of the bedroom floor as she shrugged. “I can take the far side next to the window, since you’re already on this one.”
He stood as she stepped forward, which brought them almost flush with one another. She looked up at him, and he wondered if she could hear how hard his heart hammered at the proximity. Something about her got him twisted inside—it had been that way for months, becoming worse the more they got to know one another. And standing so close together with so little clothing threatened his normal composure.
He cleared his throat and stepped to the side, allowing her to pull back the covers and climb into bed, scooting to the far side.
She turned away from him, which was fortunate because they were teetering on a perilous edge, and he didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship with a relationship that couldn’t be serious.
He climbed back into bed and settled under the covers, reaching out to turn the lamp off and plunging the room into total darkness. She didn’t even leave the stove light on to illuminate the space to get to the bathroom. It made the space cooler, but he wondered if it made her uncomfortable to sleep in blackness when someone knew where she lived.
“Goodnight, Charlotte.”
“Night, Aiden,” she mumbled, sounding half-asleep already.
He was in hell.
