CHAPTER THREE
Clem
The first bang of thunder was loud and directly over the lake. The cabin shuddered around me, but I’d been enforcing this cabin for months since I’d come back, however, I knew the Gage’s cabin was in desperate need of repair.
Amity would call out if she needed help. Surely.
I remembered back to the conversation in the truck. She knew about AP and Carlina. I hadn’t been expecting that. AP had kept her quiet for a while, not wanting to upset Amity so close to the breakup.
She seemed fine about it, happy even. Yet another thing I hadn’t been expecting.
Why did she keep her distance then? Did she really not want anything to do with us anymore?
Looking out my window, I could see the rain was pelting down around the cabins, visibility was weak, but the cabin seemed fine.
I had no reason to call her and ask if she was okay.
I’d left it in her hands to call me if she needed help.
My fingers were itching to do something.
I’d never been great at sitting still which was why I had a board of chess by the window, a bookcase full of books to read and a Playstation full of games to keep me busy.
Most of the time, I was so exhausted from work that I usually had a shower, watched some TV and fell asleep.
It was the weekends that I usually had nothing to do.
If I wasn’t kayaking on the lake, or helping around the town, I was driving back to the city to have lunch with AP.
He’d always been worried about me being out here on my own, but I loved it.
I always shot down his idea of getting a bigger house so I could live with him and Carlina again, but I liked my solitude.
I always had.
Somehow, he knew that.
A loud cry followed by a crack echoed through the air. That was Amity. Instantly, I flew from my cabin into the pouring rain and over to her cabin. I didn’t even have to open the door to know the sound of tumbling water.
Once I opened the door, I saw the tile from the roof had caved in under the pressure of the rain causing a waterfall of water to tumble into the cabin.
Amity was trying desperately to hold something up to cover the hole. I ran to help her, towering over her and lifting the heavy blanket up. It was soaked through.
“This won’t hold,” I yelled over the roar of water. “Come on.”
“No! I have to try.”
“Amity, come on!”
I all but yank her arm away from the tumbling waterfall and toward the door.
“My bag!” she cried out, reaching for the table where I saw her bag slung over it, her phone and kindle on the table next to it. I let her go to it and bundled her back under my arm and we ran toward my cabin.
The second I closed the door on my cabin, I realised just how much of a bad idea this was, but I couldn’t let her stay in that damaged cabin.
Her proximity was doing things to my brain that I really shouldn’t be thinking about. Things like hauling her over my shoulder, marching down to my bedroom and showing her exactly what I’ve wanted to do since I discovered I had a crush on her.
Things I knew she wasn’t into.
But the way she was looking at me, her chest heaving, and the spark in her eyes were telling me that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t imagining things.
Amity
I was hoping to avoid this weird tension thing going on between us but apparently that wasn’t in the cards. Whatever I’d done to the universe, I was being punished and I knew it.
Being in such close proximity to Clem, when she looked like that, all wet and hot, and goddamn did she smell good.
“Ah…you’re so wet—”
“What?” I all but squeaked, my cheeks flushing immediately.
“Let me get you a towel.”
It took me a hot minute before I realised she meant from the rain and not the fact I was imagining what she’d feel like if I pressed my lips to hers.
Goddamn it, Amity.
I pulled my now-drenched jacket off and hung it over the back of a chair.
My nipples were painfully hard from the chill in the air, and I crossed my arms over my chest to stop them from being so visible.
Clem returned with a bunch of towels. I wrapped myself in one, trying to pat dry my body with soaking clothes on was another task in itself.
Clem was drying my hair with another towel. Her arms moved up to wrap around my strands. Her perfume was cloying at me, wrapping around my nostrils and making it hard to remember why this was such a bad idea.
When she moved to stand in front of me, my breath caught when I saw her nipples were pushing against her wet tank top. I could see the telltale sign of a nipple piercing and instantly heat shot down between my legs.
I could picture myself wrapping my mouth around the barbell and pulling slightly, causing the most delicious sound to come fro—-
Stop.
No. This was AP’s twin sister. They were close friends, we all had been. This is not how you thought about your ex-boyfriend’s sister or your friend.
Clem’s eyes locked onto mine and I saw something there. Was that … interest?
No. I was being crazy. This storm had me all upside down.
“You should, uh—” she started, her throat working hard to swallow. “You should have a hot shower. I’ll go in after.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, there’s heaps of towels in there and I’ll get some clean clothes for you to wear.”
She was gone before I could compute what she was saying. Blindly, I followed through the cabin until I got to the bathroom, my mind still wrapping around the idea of having my tongue on her nipples, and the desire coursing through my body.
No.
This was…
No.
Clem was AP’s sister. She was a friend. Nothing more.
But when she returned with fresh clothes, I saw the heated way she was looking at me, her eyes dropping to my see-through bra and over my hips now that I’d taken my top off, before she excused herself quickly and closed the door.
Was Clem…no…that was crazy.
Surely, Clem didn’t want me like that.
…but what if she did?