But when she inhaled another breath to steady herself, Becca pulled the musky, masculine scent of Turner—mixed with the aroma of forbidden tar and nicotine—deep into her body with it. And even as he leaned away from her and rose from the bed, she noted again how his T-shirt stretched taut across his brawny chest and muscular arms, and how his rough, dark jaw gave him a feral look, and how his blue eyes seemed to be sizing her up for…something.
And she started thinking that maybe, just maybe, the temptation offered by cigarettes wasn’t going to be the biggest obstacle she faced today. Maybe, just maybe, the toughest thing she was going to have to battle would be her own wayward thoughts.
BECCA HAD JUST FINISHED making Turner’s bed when she heard the water shut off in the bathroom. He’d magnanimously offered to let her shower and dress first, so she’d figured the least she could do was change his sheets for him—especially since she’d probably drooled all over them during that odd little morning interlude that had so confused her at the time.
Of course, now that she was dressed in a fresh pair of jeans and a cropped red sweater, and now that she was fortified by coffee and Cap’n Crunch—honestly, did men ever eat anything healthy for breakfast?—she was confident she knew exactly what had been behind that odd little… That unusual little… That strange little… That weird little… That mysterious little… That bizarre little…thing. Now she was confident that what had passed between the two of them earlier had simply resulted from a lack of sleep and nothing more.
There was a reason why some governments used sleep deprivation as a form of torture. It made a person crazy. Crazy enough to do and say things they would normally never say or do. Like drool on their best friend’s pillow because their best friend suddenly seemed kind of sexy, where he would never seem sexy if one had gotten enough sleep and was in one’s right mind.
That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
Unfortunately, her adhesive must have collected some lint or something while she was changing the bed, because Becca became decidedly less stuck to that story when the door to the bathroom just outside the bedroom flew open, and Turner emerged in a puff of steam, completely naked, and she found herself wanting to be stuck to him in the most basic, most wanton way two people could be stuck together.
Oh, no, wait, he wasn’t quite naked, Becca was relieved—sort of—to realize. He had a towel slung around his midsection—sort of. So he was decent—sort of. Of course, the thoughts that popped into her head just then, not to mention the feelings that went zinging through her bloodstream, were anything but decent. Because as sexy as Turner had been that morning all rough-jawed and sleep-rumpled, he was ten times more so all wet-skinned and steamy.
Lack of sleep, she reminded herself, closing her eyes against the sight. Note to self: Must be in bed at a decent hour tonight so Turner will get laid. Ah, that is to say, so that all errant thoughts of Turner will be laid to rest.
Right.
“Oh, sorry,” he muttered as he backed into the bathroom and pushed the door half-closed in front of himself. “I didn’t realize you were in here.”
“No, I’m sorry,” she hastily told him, heading for the bedroom door. Which meant she also was headed toward the bathroom door. And Turner. And Turner’s towel. Among Turner’s other things.
“I thought you’d be longer in the shower,” she added as she made herself race through the bedroom door and into the living room.
“Longer?” he echoed as he poked his head back out to look at her. “All I had to do was get clean. What else would I be doing in here?”
Don’t answer, she told herself. Don’t even think about an answer.
Oh, damn. Too late…
“Uh…” she began as she turned her back on Turner to give him some privacy and herself some sanity. “I’ll just be out here in the living room, ’kay?”
Out in the living room trying not to think about you all naked and steamy, with water streaming down over your skin, and you pushing the soap across your chest and over your abs and stomach, the frothy foam oozing between your fingers and over taut muscle, and then your hand moving lower, over your lean thighs and toward your, um, uh…lower lip?
She cleared her throat indelicately. “I’ll be out here in the living room,” she repeated, striving for lightness in her tone, but thinking she probably only succeeded with lewdness instead.
She wasn’t sure, but she thought Turner mumbled something in response. She was too busy not thinking about him to ask him to repeat himself. Though she was pretty sure she heard the words crazy lunatic female somewhere in the mix. She also thought she heard the sound of a towel being whipped from a wet, steamy, hard body, but that could have just been her imagination. Wishful thinking. Whatever.
Oh, where had she put her cigarettes?
Recalling that she had smoked the last of them before going to bed, she gave herself a good mental shake and told herself to calm down. It wouldn’t be fair, anyway, to smoke in front of Turner when she’d bet him he couldn’t go all day without. She could go without, too. She’d just have to keep her thoughts focused, that was all.
Yeah, focus, she reiterated to herself. That’s the ticket.
Unfortunately, when Turner emerged a few minutes later from his bedroom, wearing snug, faded jeans and an even more faded denim work shirt that he hadn’t bothered yet to button up, Becca’s focus flew immediately to his person. To be more specific, her focus flew to that part of his person that was currently uncovered. And then her focus focused way too well. The rich scattering of dark hair that peeked out from his open shirt spanned his chest from shoulder to shoulder, she knew, because she’d seen him shirtless on more than one occasion.
But somehow, seeing him this way now felt different from the way it had on those other occasions. Before, when Turner had been shirtless around her, it had been in some public venue. Because they were swimming or he was working out in his parents’ yard or playing basketball or something else equally harmless. Now his state of dishabille seemed anything but harmless. Here, in the privacy of his apartment, when it was just the two of them, alone, it seemed more intimate somehow.
Lack of sleep, she reminded herself again. Yeah. That was for sure why she suddenly felt so restless around him.
“So what do you want to do today while you’re not trusting me to light up in secret?” he asked as he began to button his shirt. “Besides pretend we both don’t want a cigarette, I mean.”
Becca shrugged. “I don’t know. We could see a movie.”
He gazed at her through narrowed eyes. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Had enough, have you?”
“Let’s just say that when it’s my time to go to that big disease-of-the-week in the sky, I’ll know all the right things to say about moons and stars and no regrets.”
“Mmm.”
She watched as he finished buttoning himself up, and continued to watch as he rolled back his sleeves over strong forearms, and continued to watch as he dragged both hands through his still-damp hair, slicking it straight back from his face. And then she continued to watch some more as he gazed back at her.
“What?” he asked.
“What, what?” she replied.
“Why are you looking at me? Do I have toothpaste on my lip or something?”
Oh, she really didn’t want to talk about his lip right now. “It’s nothing,” she said quickly.
Probably a little too quickly, because he narrowed his eyes even more. “What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Why do you think something is wrong?”