The Hardest Fall

His palm, which was splayed open at the small of my back, slowly moved up a few inches, and I accidentally arched into him. Goose bumps were rising on my skin all over my body, and the drops of water falling from my wet hair onto my shoulders and back weren’t helping matters. He was warm and I was freezing.

“I’m gonna need that towel,” I said, looking away as I tried to ignore the fact that I was starting to feel my nipples getting hard. It wasn’t because I could feel his abs contract against me or because that arm around me was doing things to me, too, but because it was getting chilly. Could he feel it too?

“Can you lean down with me so I can get it? Or can you look away so—”

Dylan took his hand off of my back, and the sudden loss of the warmth of his skin on mine caused a small shiver to go through my body. He tilted his head up toward the ceiling and gripped the edge of the leather couch. Keeping my eyes on him, on those bulging arms, I slowly let go of his shirt, peeled myself off of him, and had to open and close my hands a few times to get rid of the tingles in my fingers. Still keeping my eyes on him to make sure he wasn’t looking, I quickly leaned down and grabbed the towel from the floor. Instead of wrapping it around me again, where it would cover practically nothing, I decided to hold it up horizontally to cover more area. At least that way, instead of dancing on the edge of flashing him my private parts, only my backside would be open, and I was counting on there being no more surprise guests.

Now that he was looking at the ceiling and not at me, I took my time to take in all of him. Good Lord, Dylan Reed is standing right in front of me. I noticed the jeans, the damp t-shirt that fit him a little too perfectly, the wide shoulders. His arms looked bigger than I’d remembered, and I got stuck looking at that part of his body a little longer. They’d been no matchsticks before, but still. He was all hard muscle, nothing extreme, just toned, hard perfection. Even his freaking forearms looked firm and perfect with a light dusting of hair.

“Your shirt is wet,” I blurted out, not knowing what else to say.

He looked at himself, brushed a hand down his front. “That’s okay.” Then he focused on me.

I took a step back. “Are you planning on telling me what you’re doing here?” I enquired as I started to back away and put some much-needed distance between us.

His eyes found mine, and I accidentally backed into a wall.

“Are you about to run away again?” Was that a grin he was trying to fight off? I couldn’t find one single thing that was amusing about the situation. He held my gaze as if he himself was trying to figure out the answer to my question. I dropped my eyes to his throat and kept backing away…right into the tripod I had set up earlier.

Great, Zoe. You couldn’t have acted more like an idiot if you tried.

I was either gonna go for the tripod and save it, or I was gonna hold on to my towel as if nothing could break us apart. I went with the latter and just let the tripod crash to the floor, wincing when the sound echoed in the room. Thank God my camera was no longer attached to it.

When my feet got tangled and I lost my balance for a second, he made a move toward me.

“No,” I yelled, admittedly a little louder than necessary. “No—ah, you don’t have to move. Just tell me what you’re doing here.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked instead of giving me an answer. His gaze dropped to my tripod on the floor then met my questioning gaze again.

Come again? His question stopped me in my backward shuffling.

“Could you, maybe, oh, I don’t know—come up with an answer instead of more questions? I live here. You’re the one who’s in the wrong place, not me, buddy.”

Another easy smile. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so. You don’t think what, exactly?”

“I don’t think I’m in the wrong apartment.”

“I actually, really think you are.”

He crossed his arms and just stood there…fully clothed, unlike me. “I don’t think so.” He stuffed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key, shaking it in the air.

He had a key.

Goddammit, Zoe, use your brain! How else could he have gotten in?

“Look, uh…” I glanced back over my shoulder—I was only ten, twelve steps away from the corner that would take me to my room. If I could just throw on some clothes and stop with the uncontrollable shivering, I was pretty sure my mind would start working again. “Just give me a minute to get dressed and come back out here so we can…”

He nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Instead of saying Yeah, buddy, you are, I gave him an exasperated look, barely stopped myself from huffing, and disappeared down the hallway.

Not two minutes had passed before I was back in the living room, fully clothed this time. It had taken me exactly thirty seconds to get dressed, and the other minute and a half had been spent trying to make myself look…better. My heart did this weird jump at the sight of him. Adrenaline…I was sure it was the adrenaline still coursing through my body that made my stomach clench and my hands go ice cold. He was standing in the exact same spot where I’d left him; the only difference was that instead of looking right into my eyes, he was looking down at his shoes and talking on his phone.

“Yes, I understand, Coach. Of course. Okay, I will. Yes. Again, thank you.”

Coach…of course. What was I even thinking?

I’d have loved to call him and talk to him myself, but if he was with his wife, I knew he wouldn’t pick up my call, so why bother?

I leaned down and picked up my wounded tripod. After making sure it wasn’t broken, I set it up closer to the wall where I couldn’t trip on it again then walked toward the couch, the one that would take me farther away from Dylan Reed. Before my clothed ass hit the cushions, he was off his phone, and we were alone again.

“So…from the sound of things, I guess neither one of us is in the wrong place, then,” I said, speaking to his back. Even though I was surprised, I could already guess what was going on.

He turned to face me, and his eyes did a sweep up and down. “It would seem so.”

I felt like I was about to shrink under his stare, so I grabbed the nearest pillow and hugged it to my stomach. The way he looked at me… I was tempted to look down and see what he found so interesting, but I already knew I was wearing my black leggings and an old t-shirt that had the words Pizzama Party all over it in small print—nothing interesting whatsoever.

“So…” What the hell was I supposed to say? “You’re here to pick something up for Mark?” That could be a possibility.

He lost the small smile on his lips.

“No.”

That was what I was afraid of. “You’re not just dropping by, by any chance?”

“I think I’m your new roommate,” he announced, getting to the point.

And just like that, I started feeling sick again. I had been holding on to the hope that whatever he was doing there was temporary, but roommate didn’t sound temporary.

“Coach didn’t mention I was coming?” he asked, pulling me out of my little freak-out.

I tried my best to act like everything was okay. This wasn’t my apartment, after all. It was Mark who was paying the rent, not me. “Nope. I’m guessing he didn’t mention I was here, either.”