In a rush, she shoved open her front door and led a cursing Keats inside. The downstairs bathroom didn’t have a shower, so despite her hammering heart, she guided him upstairs. Ants were falling in a trail behind him, but she’d deal with that later. They got to the top of the stairs in record time. She shoved the door to the guest bathroom open and turned on the shower.
Keats was already jumping in despite the icy-cold water. “Fuck. They’re going higher.”
He went for the button on his jeans before Georgia could even process what he was doing. The jeans came off in a rush, leaving Keats standing under the spray in a pair of black boxers. He kicked the jeans to the other side of the tub, his motions frantic, and brushed at the ants with his hands.
Not knowing what else to do, Georgia reached for the handheld shower attachment, turned it on the blow-your-head-off setting, then aimed it at Keats’s legs. Finally, the ants started to fall off and swirl toward the drain. But a few of them were determined to hold on.
“Shut the curtain,” Keats said, his words frantic. “No way these bastards are going any higher.”
“What?”
“Curtain,” he said through clenched teeth, and she got it.
“Oh, right.” She yanked the curtain closed and heard more wet clothes hit the bottom of the tub.
While more cursing ensued from the other side of the curtain, Georgia worked hard at not going into a panic. Someone was in her house. A man. Someone she didn’t know. No one had been inside besides one repairman since she’d moved in. But the adrenaline pumping through her seemed less to do with her safety and much more to do with the fact that Keats was naked on the other side of that thin shower curtain.
She occupied herself with stomping the stray ants that had fallen onto the floor, while Keats washed off the last of the little demons. She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to fight off the tension, and heard a long sigh from Keats. “You okay?”
“Well, they didn’t get to the no-fly zone, so there’s that.”
“Can you tell if you have a lot of bites? They’re poisonous and too many can be serious and maybe you need a doctor and maybe—”
The curtain shifted, cutting her off, and Keats stuck his head out, a half smile on his dripping wet face. “All I need right now is a towel.”
“Oh, right, sure.” She opened the cabinet below the sink and handed him a fresh towel.
She turned to leave, but he was already stepping out of the shower before she got there. The towel was secured around his waist, but everything else was bare. A flash of desire stabbed her.
“I . . .” she said, searching for something to say and trying to keep her eyes on his face instead of on the smooth muscles of his chest and those tattoos that currently looked very wet and lickable. Stop it. “I think I have some cortisone cream around here. You’re probably going to need it.”
Keeping one hand holding the towel, he used the other to take the rubber band out of his wet hair. “Georgia—”
But before he could say anything more, there were heavy footsteps on the stairs and someone else calling her name. Her heart leapt against her ribs, and she stepped out into the hallway. Colby was trundling up the stairs, his features pinched with worry. When he saw Georgia, his fierce expression relaxed. “Jesus, I saw the door wide open and a broken glass and both of you were gone. I got worried. What—”
Of course, Keats took that moment to step out of the bathroom in his half-naked, still-wet ensemble. Colby’s eyes went wide.
And everything came crashing down around Georgia.
EIGHT
“What the hell?” Colby didn’t know what to make of finding Keats sopping wet and mostly naked in Georgia’s hallway. He hadn’t been gone that long. The guy couldn’t work that fast, especially with someone as standoffish as Georgia. And if he’d managed to—
“Georgia,” Keats said, his worried voice breaking through the theories racing around in Colby’s head. “Are you okay?”
Colby followed Keats’s gaze. Georgia had backed up against the wall, her eyes were closed, and her chest was moving at a way-too-rapid rate.
Keats put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Georgia?”
She flinched at the touch and shrank back farther again, her palms pressing against the wall behind her. Keats moved his hand away, giving her space.
Colby inched closer. “Georgia, hey, sweetheart, it’s okay. Are you having an asthma attack?”
She shook her head, a quick, darting movement. Her eyes remained tightly shut.
Keats sent Colby a what-the-fuck-do-we-do look, and Colby’s training kicked in. “Keats, run downstairs and see if you can find a paper bag, something for her to breathe into. She’s hyperventilating.”
“Right.” Keats snapped into action and jogged past Colby.