Page 58 of Escape
I’d gotten so caught up in her, I had stopped paying attention to what she was doing until she held the shirt up and asked, “What do you want me to do with this?”
Jerking my head to the side, I urged, “Just toss it into the tub. I’ll deal with it later.”
After the soaked shirt hit the tub with a loud thud, I stepped forward and wrapped the first towel around her. Josie lifted her good arm up and over the towel, ultimately clutching it to the front of her body.
“Got it?” I asked.
She nodded.
I grabbed another towel, opened it up like I had the first, and said, “Turn around.”
Josie did as I requested, and a moment later, I wrapped the second towel around the back of her body. It was the only way I could think to get her covered without me getting glimpses of her naked body. Sure, I wouldn’t have minded, but if Josie was ever going to be naked in front of me, I wanted it to be because she had a choice in the matter, because there was something other than her needing someone to help her in a situation like this.
I stepped close, wrapping the second towel around to the front of her body, and giving her the chance to take either edge of the towel into her grasp. “Are you okay to hold this while I dry your hair for you?”
My body was close to hers, my mouth inches from her ears. She smelled fantastic, and it was an extreme exercise in willpower not to drop my mouth to the exposed skin along her neck and shoulder.
“Oh, Huck, you don’t need to do that for me, too,” she said. “You’ve already?—”
“I want to do it for you, Josie. Let me take care of you like you deserve.”
There was a brief bout of silence before she whispered, “Okay.”
With her approval, I set about drying her hair for her. I sopped up the excess water with another towel before I urged her over in front of the sink and mirror, where I took a comb through her strands and pulled out the hairdryer.
For the next ten minutes or so, I dried Josie’s hair, running my fingers through it and meeting her eyes several times in the mirror. There was something appreciative lingering in her stare, a small smile playing at her lips. It was such a sweet moment between us that, despite the attraction I’d felt toward her, had nothing to do with physical desires. It was about a connection formed between two people more than a decade ago that resulted in mutual respect and love for one another.
As soon as I turned the dryer off, I said, “Come on. Let’s go get you some clothes.” I urged Josie out of the bathroom ahead of me and followed her to the guest room. “Is there anything special you want to wear?”
“No. As long as it’s soft and comfortable, I don’t care what it is. I do tend to get hot, so maybe shorts would be a good choice.”
“Okay. I’m always happy to turn the air conditioning to a cooler temperature if it would make you more comfortable,” I told her.
Josie shook her head. “That’s not necessary. I’m comfortable for the moment, and as long as I don’t have too many layers on, I should be okay.”
“If that changes, you need to let me know.”
“I will,” she promised.
I pulled out a few pairs of shorts and shirts to give Josie the option to choose what she wanted to wear before moving to the drawer with the underwear. The second the drawer was open, a flush crept over her skin.
“God, this is mortifying,” she murmured.
“Honey, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You need clothes. You need underwear. And you need a little bit of help with some simple tasks right now. It’s not a big deal.”
There was a moment of silence before she gave me a nod of understanding and said, “Anything cotton is fine.”
It seemed my mom knew what she was doing, because most of what was in the drawer was cotton. That was good. I was already going to have thoughts of Josie in my head. I didn’t need to have the perfect picture of specific, sexy underwear on her body dancing through my mind, too. I’d likely never sleep again.
With all the time that had passed since she stepped out of the bathtub, the droplets of water that had been on Josie’s legs had dried. I snatched a pair of underwear out of the drawer, crouched down, and held them out for her to step into them.
At first, it had been easy to do, but the higher I pulled them up her legs, the more difficult it became to not touch her skin. My knuckles grazed the soft flesh on her outer thighs, and touching her hips was unavoidable when I’d made it there. Though I knew I shouldn’t have allowed my hold to linger, I felt temporarily frozen.
My eyes met hers, and for a fleeting moment, my mind drifted to the possibility of this being our future. Not her being unable to take care of herself, but the intimate moments. Would Josie and I make it to a place where we’d be able to have more than just this friendship between us? Would we ever have more? Or was I a fool to hope that I’d one day experience the privilege of touching her because she asked me to?
With no answers in sight and an uncertain look on her face, I reluctantly pulled my hands away from Josie’s body to grab her clothes. And I did it knowing that regardless of where things went between Josie and me down the road, there wasn’t a chance I was ever going to live without her in my life again.
FIFTEEN