The Rom-Commers(82)

Shirtless.

He’d achieved full pants status … but he hadn’t even started on the shirt.

It was a bit of a shock, to be honest.

We’d done lots of swimming together, of course, and so I’d seen his chest and his shoulders and his whole … upper half before. Maybe it was the context this time—in his bedroom, me still somewhere south of sober, him very recently naked.

“You looked!” Charlie said, like I was a cheater.

“You yelped!” I countered, like he was a troublemaker.

“I was fine.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Close your eyes again,” Charlie commanded.

“Put your shirt on,” I commanded back.

But I closed them. And waited. Poutily.

By the time Charlie arrived in front of me with a set of sweats for me to use, I was semi-determined to never open them again.

“It’s fine now,” Charlie said.

“I don’t trust you.”

By the time I finally peered out through my lashes, Charlie was wearing a hooded sweatshirt printed with the words I’D RATHER BE WITH MY IMAGINARY FRIENDS.

“Who’s that quote by?” I asked, dropping all pretense and frowning.

“Me, actually,” Charlie said. “I said it to my sister at a family dinner once, and she got it printed on a hoodie.”

Then he held up the one he’d grabbed for me: WRITERS DO IT ON THE PAGE.

I met his eyes, like Seriously?

Charlie shrugged. “My sister keeps giving me writer-themed workout gear.”

“That one is … humiliating,” I said.

“I agree,” Charlie said, pulling me up into a standing position so we could get started. “But it’s fleece-lined.”

I was shivering too much to argue. “Fine.”

“Here,” he said, holding out the set.

But I shook my head. “I’m too cold.”

“You won’t warm up until you’re dry,” Charlie said.

I was shaking. That much I knew for sure.

Charlie must have looked at this wet, shaking, still-drunk human in front of him and decided we had nothing more than a medical situation on our hands. He didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to help you, okay?” he said.

“Help me do what?”

“Change.”

“What! No!”

“Look,” Charlie said. “You can’t stay like this.”

“I’ll do it,” I said, reaching out a shaky arm for the hoodie.

But then, I dropped it. We both looked down at where it landed.

“Somebody’s got to get you into some dry clothes,” Charlie said, picking it back up. “Just pretend I’m a doctor.”

“But you’re not a doctor.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you catapulted off my diving board.”

I really was quite cold.

“Fine,” I said, not seeing a viable way to argue. “But you have to close your eyes.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“Echolocate,” I said. “Like a bat.”

“Emma,” Charlie said. “That’s not—”

“There’s no way in hell I’m letting you see me naked,” I said, in a tone like I would gladly die of hypothermia before I ever let that happen. “And I don’t think that mean ex-wife girlfriend of yours would be too thrilled about you doing that, either.”

“Fine,” Charlie said. “I’ll close my eyes.”

“Fine,” I said. “Don’t peek.”

Had I been thinking that Charlie seeing my shivering, wet, quasi-hypothermic, goose-pimpled naked body would be too erotic for either of us to handle?

Because whatever I’d just insisted on was worse.

Charlie did close his eyes—and I never saw him try to cheat—but that meant he had to put his hands all over me to figure out how to peel that wet, tangled maxi dress off.

“I think it ripped when I fell,” I said.

“It definitely did.”

“How can you tell?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Oh, god. What had Charlie seen?

At least for now, he wasn’t looking.

But since he couldn’t see me, he had to feel me. All over. In places I’d never even really noticed or thought about before—from the inside of my elbow, to the crown of my hip, the soft pooch below my belly button, to my … withers. And everywhere else, too. I’m telling you, those hands were omnipresent—as he untangled knotted wet cloth, and moved limbs for better positioning, relentlessly feathering accidental brushes and strokes in unexpected places that gave me a whole different kind of shivers.

I clutched the loose sweatpants and sweatshirt to guard my front like a protective barrier between us. But it was no match for the touching.

I was too cold to enjoy it, of course.

Mostly.

Once the dress was in a sopping pile on Charlie’s floor, he had to come back up halfway with his hands to find my underwear elastic on my hips and then roll those down to my ankles so I could step out of them. And then he had to come back up and reach around behind my waist to unhook the low-back strapless bra, the mechanics of which totally threw him.