Chase Me If You Can(19)
Wes pushes to his feet, taking his time with a long stretch. He’s so damn tall his fingertips graze the ceiling, not that my attention goes anywhere other than the sliver of tan skin exposed by his shirt riding up.
“You could always join me,” he drawls, mischief sparking to life as his lips curl. “I know how much you hate wasting time. Much more efficient to shower together.”
I’ve never denied that Wes is attractive. He’s built like he chops wood for a living instead of running around the wilderness with his camera, and the combo of dark hair and tattoos is a weakness of mine.
But he’s also a swirling vortex of chaos. My life is chaotic enough.
I force myself to laugh in his face. It doesn’t have the intended effect.
Wes’s smirk only grows, but at least he doesn’t press the issue. “I’ll be quick.”
After grabbing a toiletry bag and some clean clothes, he slides by me. I stand there, rooted to the spot far longer than I want to admit, before I march myself off to the tiny linen closet to grab clean sheets for the couch.
It’s just one night. My brother will replace the windows tomorrow, and we’ll start the drive southeast in separate cars. I can survive less than twenty-four hours of Wes in my house.
Chapter Five
Turns out that showering after Wes, surrounded by hot, humid air smelling distinctly like him, isn’t a cure for insomnia. When my alarm goes off, I swear I’ve only just fallen asleep. My dreams were a hazy mix of images that fade before I even fully open my eyes, but the dampness between my thighs and the accompanying ache of unsatisfied desire linger.
Determined to ignore it, I grab the first thing my hand lands on in the closet—a dress—before the smell of fresh coffee lures me out of my bedroom, still finger-combing my tangled hair. I’m too tired to bother with anything else. The dress has a built-in bra that mostly keeps things contained, and I can get dressed properly after we drop Wes’s car off. It’s exactly the kind of dress my mother would label sloppy, but it’s one of my favorites.
I’m texting my brother as I stumble into the kitchen, which means I hear the low noise Wes makes before I see him. It’s not the sort of noise that belongs in my kitchen, scraping over my skin in a deliciously feral way, and when I jerk my head up from my phone, there’s something wild in the way he’s staring at me.
My sleep-fogged brain struggles to processes what I’m seeing. Wes stands at my stove, frying bacon that I know for a fact was not anywhere in my house last night. Shirtless and barefoot, his jeans ride dangerously low on his hips, the ends of his hair curling and damp from another shower—which is about when I remember him giving me a hard time at the wedding over wearing a dress.
When his eyes dip to my chest and then lower, where the dress clings to my hips before swirling around my legs, heat crawls into my cheeks. “I didn’t put this on for you.”
“Didn’t say that you did.”
“I wear dresses all the time at home.”
“Your hair is longer than I thought,” Wes says before abruptly turning back to the stove. But not before I catch the faintest hint of color washing into his cheeks and the bird tattoos that spread across his upper chest and onto his left bicep.
I can’t think of a single time in all the years I’ve known him that I’ve seen Wes flustered.
Suddenly aware of the weight of the long waves of hair falling down my back, I fight the urge to twist it into a knot and instead study the vertical tattoo along his spine. My fingers itch to reach out and touch. The piece extends in a long column I’ve only caught glimpses of before disappearing into his waistband. I’m too far away to be sure, but they look like a random assortment of letters and numbers. “Just how many tattoos do you have?”
Wes turns his head slightly toward me, one eye still on the stove. “You asking for a little show-and-tell?” he teases with his usual innuendo.
I scoff and roll my eyes, grateful to be back on more familiar footing. “Hard pass.”
If he’s offended, he hides it behind a good-natured laugh. “I got most of them when I was younger. Probably due for a new one but I can’t decide what I want.”
Curiosity gets the better of me. “Do they mean anything in particular?”
A flicker of emotion dashes across his face, the muscles in his arms flexing before he gives me another of those charming Wild Wes grins. “Whatever seemed like a good idea at the time.”
It’s a reminder of his impulsivity and recklessness I sorely need now that he’s doing his best impression of a bad-boy-turned-good fantasy cooking breakfast. Seemed like a good idea at the time is what landed him in my kitchen in the first place.
My phone lights up with a text, excusing me from having to dwell on the strangeness of the conversation. Sparring with Wes in parking lots has never been as intimate as this early morning duel.
“Eric said he’s already at the garage if we want to come by now before he opens.” My stomach grumbles a protest as I cast a forlorn glance at the food on the stove. “We can reheat that. Assuming it’s edible.”
“It’s more than edible.” Wes points with a spatula to the counter, where he’s laid out tortillas I hadn’t noticed. “I just need another minute and then we’ll have tacos we can eat while we drive.”