Page 27 of Wild About You
“I was starting to wonder if you’d make it in today,” Harper adds.
“Hey, watch it—you’re not allowed to get along with him if it means ganging up on me!” I stab a finger in her direction. They both snicker. I don’t love where that’s headed.
Reaching my chosen boulder shelf, I stand on tiptoes to place my clothes, travel towel, and toiletry bag there, then put my hands on my hips and consider my next move. I didn’t pack a swimsuit and figured my sports bra and undies would be more or less the same. But now that I’m here, and Harper’s in her practical swimwear, the assumption that I can just strip down in Finn’s presence feels…bold. Should I see what he’s doing first? If he wants to turn away or something?
I spin toward him. “Finn, what should—”
I choke on the rest of the question, whatever it was gonna be, feeling speechless. Feeling a whole bunch of other things, too. Because Finn is now visible, having waded into the middle of the creek.
And stripped down to his underwear.
Like it’s nothing.
They don’t reveal much more than swim trunks would. I just hadn’t even readied myself for the fact of Finn shirtless, let alone…everything else.
“What should what?” he asks with a brief glance my way, clueless that he’s being ogled. He goes back to his task of cupping water in one hand at a time, bringing some up to pour over the surprisingly broad, fit expanse of his bare chest, each arm that I definitely hadn’t been giving enough credit when they were T-shirt–clad, up his neck, over the top of his head. It’s ridiculous, like watching some outdoorsy GQ shoot happen in slow motion before my eyes. Dunking himself under water for two seconds would be so much more efficient.
I can’t look away.
But then he meets my eyes again, confusion in his. That makes me blink back to the present, to where I am and what’s happening. To Harper now wading past me, about halfway between where Finn and I stand. To how I was about to ask the Calvin Klein model in training if it’s okay that I take my bonnet off and loosen my corset strings in his presence, because apparently I’m some kind of Puritan now.
“Oh, nothing.” The words are comically high-pitched and a little wheezy, like my mouth is too dry. Never mind those liters of water I downed back at camp. Take me to the town square and slap a red letter T to my chest, because this girl is thirsty.
I’ve seen my fair share of hot, less-than-fully-clothed guys, in plenty more intimate circumstances. I can acknowledge that yes, my partner is one of the hottest, but he’s also only recently stopped being actively hostile to me. Let’s have some dignity and move right along. It doesn’t have to be A Whole Thing.
Squaring my shoulders, I summon all the reserves of confidence and shamelessness buried somewhere under the humbling experiences of the past year. I remove my shirt and toss it up beside my fresh clothes, then pull off my leggings, already relieved to be free from damp, clingy cotton.
Finally, I wade deeper in. Goosebumps cover me head to toe by the time the water is at my belly button.
“I think we’re swimming in melted polar ice caps,” I say through chattering teeth, taking slow, careful steps. My flip-flops don’t have the best traction on the rocky creek bed.
“There’s the drama I was promised from a theater kid,” Finn deadpans, arms crossed over his chest. As I get closer to him, I see they’re goosebump-y too.
I gasp. “You do listen when I monologue about my life!”
“I listen to everything you say,” he says to the water, cheeks going pink.
Harper is drifting beyond Finn now, her head visible just to the left of his shoulder as she gives me a meaningfully raised eyebrow. Which I ignore.
“Oh, sure you do,” I retort. “You especially love my nature jokes, and when I talk about skincare. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if you’re obsessed with me-eee…”
Splash.
Before the last word gets out, my foot slips on a slick rock, and I go cartoon-character-on-a-banana-peel tumbling backward, windmilling my arms through the air before my entire backside hits the water. And a low, flat boulder beneath it.
I’m startled more than anything as I emerge from the surface, spluttering and coughing up water, rubbing it out of my eyes and face so I can see. Warm, strong hands grip my upper arms for the second time today, pulling me up. I slide again, still not able to find good footing, but fortunately this time, I have a softer landing. Smack against Finn’s bare chest.
His hiking sandals definitely have better grip, as he stays standing and holds me to him. We’re plastered together, front-to-front, chest-to-thigh, completely soaked and breathing heavily. Our gazes lock, our chests rising and falling against each other, and I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this aware of every place another person’s skin touches mine. It’s a lot of places. One of his hands releases one of my arms and glides over to my back, rubbing a slow circle there that seems almost mindless as his focus stays on my face, tracking from my eyes to lips to cheeks that feel like they’re on fire and back. I take in new details of his face up close, like the light brown fuzz on his cheeks, jawline, chin that’s starting to move past stubble into beard territory, the faint smattering of freckles across his nose with one especially dark spot under his left eye, a small scar in his lower lip like it was split at some point.
“You good?” Harper’s shout from a few yards upstream snaps both of us out of this stunned tableau. Finn blinks a few times, his head jerking back before he puts a foot or two of space between us. With the loss of contact, I return to myself. And reality hits.
“Fine!” I yell back to her, followed by a quiet, gracelessly blurted, “Motherfucker.” I wince as I bring a hand to my left side, where my hip and butt broke my fall against the big rock underwater. I rotate my body to look down at the area that now throbs in pain, finding that it’s already got an angry red patch marking the scene of the accident.
“Are you okay?” Finn asks, reaching out as if to grab me again but stopping himself mid-air. He lets his fingers slowly float the rest of the way until they just barely graze my hip, gently turning me so he can take a look.
“I’ve given you way too many reasons to ask me that in the past twenty-four hours,” I grumble. “But I’ll be fine. Just gonna have a big bruise on my ass. Good thing there’s so much padding back there, huh?”
His throat bobs on a swallow and he gives a short nod. I don’t know if he realizes he’s agreed, or that his gaze looks like it’s trained on said ass, even though he’s likely meaning to check on my injury. Totally innocent. Totally lighting up my insides anyway.