The bath water was turning cold, so Maggie pulled the plug—the real rubber kind on a length of chain. She used her limited arm strength to push herself out of the tub until she could sit on the edge, then she swung her legs over onto the worn bath mat. She grabbed one of the hanging towels and wrapped it around her slender body. The edges barely overlapped. Dean was going to be in big trouble unless he had a couple towels to work with. That thought passed through her brain the same way it would if she were thinking about Audrey or Cal. She’d give a slight smile, maybe a giggle at the odd picture they’d make trying to cover themselves with a hand towel. But nothing more.
Had she ever felt more?
Maggie closed her eyes and saw dark hair, a short beard, and a blue striped sweater. She could smell his molten metal and a hint of pine scent. She saw the frown he’d give to the tiny towel, and warmth bloomed in her belly. She imagined work-roughened fingertips, palms full of calluses and small scars, pushing down her purple leggings. The heat spread through her like a drop of water on tissue paper. She pressed her thighs together to relieve the ache. It didn’t work. The heat blanketing her body, heat caused by thoughts of Mac, banished even the memory of being cold.
She dropped the towel, the rough terry cloth scraping over the sensitive points of her nipples, over the bones at her hips, and down the outside of her thighs. Maggie shuddered. Her fingers traced down the path of the towel. Her hands stopped at the dip of her hips before she slid them towards the center of her abdomen. They met in the middle and she let one hand slide up to cup her breast. She gasped at the light pressure, gently pinching at her nipple. Until now, she hadn’t noticed her breasts ached to be touched. Her other hand dipped down over the coarse hair between her thighs.
Should she shave? Wax? Men liked that kind of thing. Would Mac like that kind of thing? The heat started to temper, and her hands stopped their perusing. What was she doing? Maggie faced her reflection in the mirror. Flushed cheeks. Glazed eyes. Goosebumps spread along her arms, and not because of the half-naked man in their shared hotel room, but because of grumpy and standoffish Tyler McCoy.
Maggie had felt sexual attraction before, although maybe not quite at this level, but it had never been centered around a specific person. She liked the idea of sex, and she liked the small orgasms she managed to wring out of herself, but choosing to get herself off was usually a conscious decision. Now it felt imperative.
Maggie closed her eyes and imagined climbing into the single bed and curling up underneath the worn comforter. It was Mac's arm she imagined circling her waist. It was Mac's breath warming the back of her neck. Mac's fingers trailing up with teasing touches to cup her breast. Her whole body shuddered at the thought, her core going slick and wet.
She needed to widen her stance, but she wasn’t sure her ankle would hold. Maggie dropped her hand from her breast and let her weight fall forward as she braced herself on the bathroom counter. She raised her bad leg, propping her knee up on the counter. The throb in her ankle was nothing compared to the throb between her thighs. Maggie didn’t care that there was another person just outside the door. She didn’t care that she was in a dated hotel bathroom, standing under orange fluorescent lights. She didn’t care that she was splayed wide open in front of a goddamn mirror. She brought her free hand between her legs and circled her entrance once, twice, three times before dipping two fingers into her wet heat.
A moan broke free from her mouth and she didn’t care if Dean could hear her. She could barely hear the hum of the automatic fan over the pounding of her own pulse. She thrust her fingers deeper and felt the flutters start as her walls clamped down. They were Mac's fingers inside of her. It was the base of Mac's thumb that brushed against her clit and locked all her muscles down. It was the image of Mac's face, dark eyes and frown turning his lips, tattooed across her brain that tipped her over the edge and into the fastest, sweetest orgasm of her entire life.
“Need me to give you a hand?” Dean’s voice broke through the lustful fog circulating through her brain.
That was the last thing she needed. Maggie dropped her knee from the counter and turned on the sink to splash water on her face. Her pulse was slowly evening out.
“I’m okay.” Maggie called back, “I’ll be right out.”
When she finally emerged from the bathroom, Dean was sitting in the worn chair, his phone in his hands. Maggie could admit he looked like every romance hero come to life. He lounged back in the chair, legs spread out in front of him, as comfortable in his underwear as he was dressed. Maggie could only dream of having his confidence.
He’d spread the bulk of their clothes along the heater. The sweatshirt she’d been wearing and his fleece were both laid out on towels by the window. Everything was still damp, but at least the dripping had stopped.
“Shower is all yours,” she said.
Dean lifted his head to look at her and she struggled to contain her blush.
“Phones are okay.” He stood from the chair, stretching each of his carved muscles. Maggie waited for the rush that didn’t come. “I just checked that yours would turn on. It’s on the dresser.”
He had to step in close to her on his way to the bathroom.
The heat from Dean’s body seeped along her collarbones and down the tops of her thighs. She waited for a spark or a throb as Dean’s green eyes met hers. Nothing.
Dean tugged the end of Maggie’s towel. “These things are awfully tiny, Babs. I don’t know if this will work for me.”
“That sounds like a you problem,” Maggie said and sat herself down on the edge of the one bed.
Dean’s chuckle followed him into the bathroom. She heard the door click shut and the shower turn on. Maggie wondered if maybe, for the last twenty years, she’d been wrong about everything.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Stupid,stupid,stupid,Maggie told herself as she sipped her half hot chocolate and half coffee at a small round table in the Perk-u-later. The sweetness from her drink wasn’t resetting her brain in quite the way she’d hoped it would. In fact, all the coffee was doing was scalding off her taste buds.
The shop was quiet—not abnormal for a Monday morning—and Gwen had already dropped some nibbles on the table with a promise to stop by for a real chat a little later. The whole café smelled of toasted coffee beans, warm chocolate, and melted butter. Despite the comfortable feelings those smells evoked in Maggie, she couldn’t stop remembering the scent of pine trees and fresh rain and molten metal.
Even with fresh clothes, several warm showers, and a full night in her own bed, a chill still wracked Maggie’s body. She’d assumed the twenty-four hours with a nearly naked Dean would have generated enough heat to blanket that chill out of existence, but it hadn’t. She’d woken up on the left side of the bed, in still rain-damp underwear, Dean’s back to her as he sprawled on the right side, and she’d been even colder. Dean was beautiful to look at, strong and capable as he lifted her into his muscled arms, and just flirty enough to keep her laughing, but the spark she’d always assumed would arc between them had been nowhere in that hotel room.
Maggie wanted to blame the weight of the heavy rainstorm for drowning their chemistry, but stripping down to their underwear and climbing into a bed barely big enough to fit one and a half adults should have brought the heat roaring up like an alcohol-drenched fire.
Maggie wasn’t the most experienced or the most forward woman, but it hadn’t been nerves that had stopped her from rolling right into Dean’s body heat. It wasn’t anything about Dean that stopped her from playing out the classic “one bed” trope with his broad body. It was the strange thought that settled deep into the recesses of her mind and wouldn’t let go: that cuddling up to a naked Dean would hurt a man with dark hair and darker eyes.
The bell over the door jingled and Audrey rushed into the shop, hair flying. “Sorry.” She slid into the seat across from Maggie. “I know I’m late.”
“If this is a bad time, we can meet tomorrow.” Would Maggie have preferred to talk about her jaunt to the woods with her best friend today? Yes. Would it kill her to wait? Probably not.