Chapter Five #2
At the top of the stairs, Cal paused, catching his breath from the climb. That’s when he heard it.
“Help! Someone help me!”
His chest tightened as he rushed toward Willa’s apartment door. It was unlocked. He shoved it open and stepped inside.
“Willa?” His voice echoed through the small space.
A low groan answered him from somewhere inside. “In here.”
He followed the sound to the bathroom, the door wide open. Her phone was on the vanity, the screen still lit.
His gaze snapped to the tub.
Empty.
Except for Willa, sitting in the middle of it with a towel draped across her chest, her shoulders hunched, her face somewhere between miserable and furious.
His eyes flicked down and landed on the problem.
Her toe.
It was wedged in the bathtub faucet.
Cal stared, his brain stalling for a second as he tried to process the scene.
Surprise, concern, and a solid hit of what the actual hell all tangled together in his head.
“This,” he said slowly, “was not what I expected to find up here.”
Willa groaned again, sinking lower in the tub like she could disappear. “Just… help me, okay?”
Cal dragged a hand over his mouth, biting back a grin. “Sure. But you’re going to have to tell me how this happened.”
She glared at him. “Do I?”
“Yeah. I think you do.”
Willa let out a long breath and leaned her head back against the tile. “I’ve been watching a lot of old movies lately.”
Cal crouched beside the tub, careful not to jar his knee. “Yeah?”
“Last night I watched The Seven Year Itch.” She glanced at him, her expression sour. “You know, Marilyn Monroe. There’s this scene where she gets her toe stuck in the bathtub faucet.”
Cal blinked. “Okay…”
“And I thought, well, that’s stupid. That would never actually happen.”
He waited.
“So I tried it,” she finished.
His eyebrows shot up. “You tried it.”
“And now my toe is stuck.”
He pressed his lips together, fighting the urge to laugh. “So you were basically fact-checking an old movie?”
Her glare sharpened. “Look, it was a slow night.”
Cal leaned in, inspecting the faucet, careful not to brush against her towel. Her foot was wedged at a weird angle, but her skin wasn’t turning red or purple. No bleeding. No swelling that he could see.
“Well,” he said, sitting back on his heels, “the good news is, your toe’s still in one piece.”
“That’s great,” she muttered, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Any chance you know how to get it unstuck?”
Cal rubbed his jaw, already thinking through his options. “I’ve got a few ideas.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Any of them involve me keeping my dignity?”
“Not a single one,” he said, his grin finally breaking through. “But I’ll do my best.”
Cal got to his feet and opened the cabinet under the sink. “We need something to help slide it out. Soap, lotion, oil… something.”
He shuffled through the shelves until he found a small glass bottle tucked in the back. He picked it up and read the label. The words Midnight Temptation were written in a loopy, romantic font.
He raised his eyebrows. “Massage oil, huh?”
Willa sighed. “It was a gift from Fia. She thought I needed to spice up my love life.”
Apparently, Willa hadn’t checked to see if it did the job since the bottle was unopened and the cap even had a little dust on it.
He cracked the seal and poured a small amount around her toe, careful not to overdo it.
The scent drifted up immediately, warm and sweet, like vanilla mixed with something he couldn’t quite name but was definitely not helping his focus.
He worked the oil gently around her skin, easing it between her toe and the metal. His fingers brushed over her foot, and his mind, traitorous as ever, kept circling back to the very obvious fact that she was naked under that towel.
“Try wiggling it now,” he said, forcing his voice to stay level.
Willa gave a little tug, but the toe didn’t budge.
“Hang on,” Cal said. He poured a little more, rubbing it in, working slowly, his thumb sliding over her skin.
His heart was beating faster than it should, and his breathing had kicked up. And that brainless part of him behind the zipper of his jeans? Well, that part thought this was the best situation ever.
It wasn’t.
It was hard enough to resist Willa when she was clothed and surly, but the challenge skyrocketed with her damp and naked.
“Okay,” he said. “Try again.”
She gave another tug, and this time her toe popped free with a slick little snap. She gasped and pulled her foot back as if she thought the faucet might grab her again.
Cal grinned. “Rescued you. No cutting pipes, no emergency calls. Pretty smooth if I say so myself.”
Willa huffed out a laugh, her cheeks pink. “Yeah. Real smooth.”
His hand lingered just a second too long on her foot before he caught himself and let go. “You’re free.”
“Thanks,” she said, her voice soft but a little shaky.
Cal straightened, but the heat he felt wasn’t going anywhere. Not even close. He stood and cleared his throat. “I’ll, uh, give you some space.”
He stepped out into the living room and pulled the door mostly closed behind him. The scent of Midnight Temptation followed him, sweet and warm, clinging to his skin like the whole situation wasn’t already burned into his memory.
He moved to her window, needing something else to look at, something that didn’t involve Willa, bare skin, and the way his hand had felt on her foot.
Across the street, the fancy rental house was lit up again.
Cal narrowed his eyes. The couple was back.
The man wore a sleek black cape and a gold mask this time.
The woman was dressed like some kind of fairy-tale villain—tight red dress, dramatic headpiece, tall boots.
He studied them and decided this wasn’t Mason and Fia.
Nope. And he was more than relieved about that.
He watched as she backed the man toward the window, her hand slipping into his pants without hesitation. Yeah, things were already in full swing. He jerked his gaze away and scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Okay. Good for them,” he muttered to himself, focusing hard on the floorboards instead.
His pulse was still hammering from the scene in the bathroom, and Midnight Temptation was still in the air, lingering as if it did indeed have someone’s love life to spice up.
This town really did not know how to give a man a break.
Willa came into the living room a minute later, her wet hair pulled into a quick, messy bun.
She wore a pair of well-worn sleep jogger pants with a hole in the knee and a faded T-shirt with a grumpy cartoon cat across the front.
Somehow, the hole in her pants and the cat on her shirt made her even more tempting.
“Thanks,” she said, her voice a little rough. “For the rescue. I really thought I was going to wait for Fia or my mom to show up. You saved me from a lifetime of teasing.”
Cal stayed by the window, giving her a small grin. “Anytime.”
She walked over to stand beside him and glanced out the window. Her gaze landed right on the couple in the rental house. The woman’s hand was still confidently down the man’s pants, their masks glinting in the light.
Willa snapped back like she’d touched something hot. “Oh wow, okay. That’s… happening.”
Cal bit back a laugh. “Yeah. Seems like it.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, clearly flustered. “Right. Well. Thanks again. Really. I promise I won’t test any more old movies.”
Their eyes met. Neither of them moved away.
The heat that had been simmering between them all along hit like a match to dry kindling.
It was instant.
It was undeniable.
And neither of them was going to stop it.
Willa stepped closer. Cal’s hand found her waist. Their mouths crashed together, fast and hungry, like they’d both been holding their breath for days. She clutched his shirt in her fists, pulling him tighter, and his fingers slid into her damp hair as the kiss deepened.
It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful.
It was all fire and pull and desperation. The kind of kiss that pushed everything else straight out of his head and right down to that brainless part of him. No way in hell was that part going to make a wise decision about this.
But Willa apparently went with the wise. She pulled away, her breath gusting against his mouth, her cheeks flushed with arousal. Her chest rose and fell in sharp, uneven beats, and Cal could still feel the pressure of her hands gripping his shirt.
She opened her mouth, and he braced for it. He figured she was about to call it a mistake, say they had crossed a line, that they should forget it happened.
Instead, her voice came out low and a little unsteady. “Have you seen Eden yet?”
The question hit him harder than he expected.
His grip on her waist loosened, but he didn’t step back. He searched her face, seeing all the worry layered under the heat they’d just shared.
He thought about what Fia had told him, about the betrayal Willa had been carrying. About the wall she was still holding up.
“No,” he said quietly. “I haven’t seen her. And I… I heard about what she and your fiancé did. I’m sorry, Willa. I mean that. I’m sorry that happened to you.”
Her mouth trembled, as if maybe she’d been holding her breath too long.
Cal kept his voice steady. “I didn’t come here to Wild Rose Point for that. I didn’t come here to stir that all up again.”
She searched his face like she was trying to decide if she could believe him. Or maybe trying to decide if she wanted to.
He waited, giving her the time. She deserved that much.
Willa eventually gave a small nod and stepped back, putting just enough distance between them to make the space feel colder. She rubbed her hands down the sides of her joggers like she needed something to do, like she was trying to wipe the moment away.
“Good luck,” she said, her voice steady but not soft. “Working out whatever you need to work out with Eden.”
Cal heard it for exactly what it was. A polite goodbye wrapped in a sharp edge. A don’t let the door hit you in the ass.
He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to walk away from her, not now, not when she was still flushed and breathless and close enough to pull back into his arms.
But she was right.
He had to finish things with Eden. Willa deserved that much from him. So he gave her a slow nod, even though every part of him wanted to stay.
Then he turned and walked out.