Closing my eyes, I enjoyed the silence … and my buzz. The silence was interrupted with voices. I had enough sense to kind of care, but not enough sense to get out of the tub or say anything. Instead, I held still, really still … and listened.
“It’s beautiful, Fisher. You’re incredibly talented. How long did it take you to build it?”
Teagan.
“About a year. I didn’t rush anything, and I had some other jobs I was working on too.” His voice got closer.
My senses … my fight or flight? Yeah, they had the night off.
The lights turned on. All of them. There must have been a master switch. It was a little blinding at the moment. I squinted.
“Jesus … what are you …” Fisher turned his head like a real gentleman. No wonder Teagan liked him.
I liked him too.
“Oh! Reese!” Teagan jumped and turned as well. “Why is she in your tub?” she asked Fisher in a tone that made me think she wasn’t too pleased.
“You said anytime … I could use your tub anytime.” I chuckled, cupping my hands together at the surface of the water and squirting it in different directions. “You didn’t say I could drink your beer, so … oops. I’ll pay ya back.” Another giggle.
“Fisher …” Teagan’s voice wasn’t friendly like her smile, like she worked with kids all day. It was really grumpy. Did he offer his tub to her too?
“I’ll get out in a minute. When my head stops spinning.”
The door shut, and I no longer saw them, but I heard the murmuring of their voices, and it wasn’t good. A few moments later, the door opened again. It was Fisher, but he wasn’t being as much of a gentleman. No hiding his eyes.
“Reese …” he said in a slow and steady tone like I was that deer in the headlights he talked about.
“Fish-er … I like that name. At first … it was weird, like what were your parents thinking? But I like it now. A little too much. Ya know?”
“I don’t know.” He made his way to the tub, plucking my clothes from the floor one piece at a time. He sat on the edge of the tub with his back to me, holding my clothes in his hands as he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly in a sound. My fuzzy head had trouble deciphering it. A grumble or a growl?
“Are you mad at me?”
Shaking his head, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what I am.”
“Is it the beer?”
He didn’t respond.
“The bathtub? Were you just kidding about me using it whenever I wanted to?”
No response.
“I think I need a towel.”
He nodded toward a tall stack of drawers by the sink on the opposite side of the bathroom. “Bottom drawer.”
It might have been his proximity or the shock of him and Teagan showing up so early, but my buzz was quickly wearing off. “Aren’t you going to get it for me?”
His lips twisted and he glanced over his shoulder at me. My hands moved to my breasts, and I crossed my legs as a big fat dose of reality began to register. The naked fisherman had seen me naked. Not briefly. He took his time, picking up my clothes while inching his way to the tub and my fully exposed body.
No bubbles.
No effort to cover myself.
Nothing.
“I’m not,” he said.
“Why not?” My voice shook a bit. Sobriety stole the moment.
“Because I think you need to get it yourself.”
“Are you going to leave now?”
“Nope.” His gaze slid down my body.
My hands gripped my breasts harder as I squeezed my legs together tighter.
It was so wrong. He was so wrong.
Drawing my knees to my chest, I rocked forward and stood, lifting one leg out of the tub followed by the other, inches from Fisher. On a suffocating swallow, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. He had an unobstructed view of my naked backside. I didn’t have enough hands to cover everything.
“I thought you were a gentleman,” I mumbled, making the walk of shame to the stack of drawers and hunching down instead of bending over to retrieve a towel.
“Why did you think that?”
Wrapping the towel around my body, I turned toward him. “Because you looked away when you first came into the bathroom.”
“That was for Teagan. A gentleman doesn’t stare at a naked woman in front of his date.”
“So you’re a gentleman for her, but not for me?”
He narrowed his eyes a second before returning a slow nod. “That’s accurate.”
Stupid fu—fudger.
“Because of my age?”
“Maybe.”
“You’re a real butt. Did you know that?”
“I know.”
“So what’s the point of all this?” I marched toward him and snatched my clothes from his hand.
“I need you to know that when you make poor decisions, men will take advantage of you.”