“Hey,” he rasped.
“Hi.” I reached up and traced the lines between his furrowed brows. “Feel rested?”
He inched up my body and buried his face against my neck, drawing a deep breath. “Never felt better.”
Perfect answer. Except the adjustment in his weight caused two problems. One, the thick press of his morning wood against my clit produced a sudden and tingling surge of arousal through my body. And two… “Ugh, my bladder.”
He dropped a kiss to my lips so quickly I almost missed it and rolled to his feet with way too much grace for a man his size.
Scratching at his stubble, his bicep flexed with the movement. All that sweaty skin on his torso stretched tight over chiseled packs of muscle, each dip and ridge guiding my gaze downward, over his flat stomach and narrowing on the dusting of hair that trailed into the waistband of his jeans.
He stared at the door, his bottom lip rolling between his teeth, causing the whiskers beneath his mouth to stand on end. “Any news?”
I shook my head, unable to stop my gaze from lowering again and latching onto the stark outline of his erection.
Rising to my knees on the mat, I nodded at his pants. “You…uh…need help with that?”
He glanced down at the distracting bulge and disregarded it to look out over the tall grass in the field.
His eyes lingered on the dead lion ten yards away and returned to the door. “We need to get going.”
Pivoting, he grabbed his bow and quiver, strapped it over his back, and stepped to the corner of the porch. His zipper sounded, and damn if that didn’t fill my head with all kinds of dirty thoughts.
With his back to me, his shoulder leaned against the building, and one hand in the vicinity of that zipper, he stood motionless.
I chewed on my lip. Was he really doing what I thought he was doing?
The discernible sound of urine splattering dirt knocked my brain into gear. I scrambled off the bedroll and ran toward him. Jesse had his cock out.
I skidded around him and stepped into the grass just as he tucked himself away. I twisted my lips into a pout. “What are you hiding? A little dick? Warts? Scales?”
With the exception of last night, Jesse used glares in lieu of words. This morning was business as usual, his opinion about my questions hardening his eyes and tightening his face.
The bastard thought he could return to the way things had been?
I fisted my hands on my hips. “Don’t point that glare at me.”
His expression blanked a millisecond before he launched. Grabbing me around the waist, he lifted me off the ground, twisting my body in his arms and pressing a hand against my belly. Hard. “Thought you had to pee?”
Bent over his arm, I folded at the waist, the pressure testing the strength of my bladder. Fuck, I might’ve peed a little in the struggle. “Put me down.”
He dropped me to my feet, and I staggered, yanking my pants down and squatting right there in the open. I spread my bare feet as much as the stretchy pants allowed and angled my ass away as my bladder released. Ahhh, relief.
His footsteps circled around me, the golden skin of his muscled torso shimmering with sweat. It was daunting the way he watched me so intensely—while I was peeing no less—but something had definitely shifted between us.
Walls had fallen last night, and a comfortable, intimate kind of closeness had nuzzled its way in. No more awkwardness. No more hiding.
He crouched before me, his eyes glimmering like crystals of copper. “I loved watching you come.”
“No sexy talk while I’m peeing, Jesse.” But I couldn’t stop a happy smile from spreading across my face.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Bladder empty, I stood, yanking my sweat-soaked pants into place. “I will be returning the favor.”
He rose with me, his gaze on the horizon, furrowed brows firmly in place.
I looked at the door of the animal clinic, sobering instantly. Seducing Jesse would have to wait.
His hand slid into mine and squeezed tight. “No news is good news, right?”
“Unless they didn’t want to wake us.”
We stood there, hand in hand, staring at the door, the air growing heavier by the second. I willed it to open, to see Darwin bounding out with his tongue flapping and tail wagging.
Jesse didn’t seem inclined to move from the spot. So I took the first step, then the next, gaining speed and ironing out my nerves as I dragged him behind me.
At the door, I grabbed the carbine, pulled in a deep breath, and turned the knob.
Sunlight streaked past us, and my eyes adjusted beyond the glowing stripe, searching the dark corners of the room for movement.
Shea lay face down on the mattress, her head lifting, her eyes weighted with sleep.