He did not hide himself from my wandering eyes, either.
But holy shit… His body… He’d done a lot with it in the three weeks since I saw him last.
Apparently, swimming, like chopping wood, did a body good.
Now only if it had done the same with his mental health...
But I wasn’t looking at his brain right now, I was looking at something else.
I shouldn’t be.
I couldn’t help it. Especially with it bouncing between his two solid, lightly-furred thighs.
“Water’s cold,” Chase muttered.
I cleared my throat and lifted both eyes along with a solitary eyebrow. “Is it?” If he looked like that with shrinkage from the cold water, then…
I clamped my bottom lip between my teeth. Jeeeeeesuuuuuus.
He was forced to stop walking before he reached me due to Timber in full herding mode, circling Chase so closely the dog might cause him to trip. My Shepherd was also yapping in excitement at an ear-piercing pitch as he tried to draw the man’s attention but Chase was focused on me instead.
He sucked on his teeth before murmuring, “Yeah.”
“Then let’s get you warmed up.” I forced myself to move and snagged the towel off the chair next to me. I held it up and open.
Because I was helpful like that.
“What are you doing here? I don’t remember extending an invite,” he said dryly, ignoring the towel and my generous offer at warming him up.
“You did. You must have forgotten.”
“I’d remember if I did.”
“You just said you didn’t remember.”
“I also asked what you are doing here. You haven’t answered that yet.”
“I will,” I assured him. “Do you want your towel first? Or do you prefer to air dry?” That last choice would be mine if given one, but I doubted the man wanted my opinion.
“I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“Clearly not,” I said under my breath.
I was hoping he’d step into the open towel and let me rub him dry. That hope was quickly dashed when he pulled it from my fingers and roughly scrubbed it over his hair, removing the excess water.
I would’ve thought the first thing he would’ve done was wrap it around his waist to hide his nicely-sized package from my wandering eyes, but clearly that wasn’t an issue with him.
With his damp, shaggy hair standing up in more directions than it should, he dried off his face next, then his broad shoulders and bulging arms, rubbed the terry cloth down his torso—his abs now a bit more defined than the last time I saw him without a shirt—then took his time to dry off each leg completely before finally wrapping that damn towel around his waist.
A sigh of disappointment slipped from me before I could corral it.
When he was done securing the towel at his hip—I made a mental side note about how his Adonis Belt, the muscular V at his hips, appeared more defined than previously, too—he lifted his brown eyes and locked them with mine. “Was that assessment for my well-being, too?”
I scratched the back of my neck, then shrugged. “Nope. That was for me. Thank you for that.”
He tipped his head to the side. “You haven’t seen another naked man before?”
“I’ve seen plenty, just none like you in person.” And that was very true. None of the men I’d ever slept with in the past looked anything like Chase.
While I hadn’t had sex with trolls, no one else had compared to the man before me. It would be great to find a man who was the perfect package. As attractive on the inside as on the outside.
He reminded me of the time I bought a new coffeemaker for the store. When I opened the box, excited it finally arrived, I was disappointed to find the item inside damaged.
With Chase’s eyebrows knitted together, his gaze took a slow roll from my face, down to my boots, only pausing at the erection I didn’t bother to hide. Trying to do so would’ve made it more obvious.
I wasn’t ashamed of my attraction to him, anyway. We all made mistakes we had to live with.
Furthermore, if he hadn’t wanted me to check him out, he would have covered up sooner. He didn’t and had taken his time on purpose. That was the strange part. Especially when he acted as though he didn’t like me.
“What are you?” he finally asked.
It took me a second to figure out what he was asking. “The same as you.”
I swore he stopped breathing and morphed into a Michelangelo statue. He didn’t even blink for the longest time.
Then, as if someone flipped a switch, his head jerked and the rest of him came back to life. “What does that mean?”
“You know what that means.”
His lips turned down at the corners and his eyes narrowed on me. “How do you know?”
Shit.
How did I answer that without making him think I was stalking him? Even though I had been when I searched the obituaries. “It was a guess,” I fibbed.