Chapter 19 #3
After a few hours of working up a sweat, I notice it’s getting dark outside, the chilled gray of the day deepening into a dusky bluish-black as the sun goes down, and I reckon I could use a shower before dinner.
I smile a little to myself as I think about Hunter coming back to a (mostly) clean lodge.
I’m smiling at just the thought of Hunter, to be honest.
I peel off my hoodie and sweats and everything else when I’m back in the attached bath off my room, cranking on the shower and sighing in contentment when I feel the hot spray splash across my palm before I step in.
My arms are a little sore from reaching to clean the walls for so long, and the hot water feels like heaven against my shoulders, so I stand under the showerhead for a solid minute or two before I finally start lathering shampoo into my hair.
The sweet scent of tangerines fills the shower as the steam clouds around me.
I close my eyes as I work my fingers through my hair to coat the entire length, spreading the shampoo from roots to ends, taking my time with it.
Which quickly reveals itself to be a massive mistake when all the lights go out.
A lot of things happen all at once when the power is cut.
The water keeps running, so that’s a plus, but I let out a scream, and the way I push myself against the back wall somehow causes the thick lather I’ve created in my hair to gloop right into my eyes.
Instant burn. And if that’s not enough, I do a panicked little dance, still squealing over the sting as I frantically try to wipe the bubbles from my eyes with already-sudsy hands (reason went out the window with the lights, apparently), which means that my feet aren’t as steady as I’d like them to be, and I’m a little more off-kilter than I should be when standing under an active spray.
So I find myself falling right on my ass.
Well, more accurately, my ankle, I guess.
The pain is instant, the scream is delayed, and the water is constant, spraying down somewhere on my thighs as I continue to yelp from the sharp throbbing just above my foot.
And I might think that my bad luck would end there—probably, given that there is little else I can imagine could happen in this tiny little window of five minutes or so—but I would be wrong.
“Tess?” Hunter’s slightly panicked voice is in the other room. I can hear it over the shower. “Are you okay? I heard screaming.”
“I’m naked!”
Probably not the most pertinent information, but it feels like it at the moment.
I can hear him right outside the door now. “Power is out. Are you okay in there?”
“I slipped,” I whine, eyes shut tight and still stinging from shampoo. “I think I might have messed up my ankle.”
“Can you move it?”
I give it a try, and I’m able to move it back and forth, but doing so causes a major ache. “Yeah, but it hurts like hell.”
“Probably just sprained then. Can you stand up?”
“About that…”
“Do you…I mean…I can help. I won’t look.”
Oddly enough, I’m more worried about him seeing me in this clumsy state rather than him seeing me naked. Again, that is. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“I can’t see. I have shampoo in my eyes.”
I hear the handle click before the door squeaks open, a bit of cold air creeping into the warm bathroom. “Yeah, it’s pitch-black in here anyway. No worries.”
“Can you get me a towel or something? My eyes are burning.”
I can sense him rummaging around in the cabinets for a second before I hear the rustle of the shower curtain.
I reach above until my fingers collide with terry cloth, and I yank down the little hand towel he’s given me and rub the suds from my eyes.
Then I reach up again to grab one of the corner shelves to try to hoist myself up afterward, but my ankle throbs sharply, making me yelp.
“I don’t think I can get up by myself,” I groan. There’s a moment of silence on the other side of the shower curtain. “Hunter?”
“Yeah,” he says finally. “Okay. I’m just—Just raise up your arms, okay? I don’t want to…I just want to make sure I get your hands.”
I do as he says, feeling about as mortified as I possibly can at this point, but after a second I feel his hands curl around mine, and he gently starts to tug me upward.
It takes a little maneuvering to get me on my feet, and even then I have to sort of stand on one foot while he supports my weight by holding on to my hands.
After that we stand there for a bit, neither of us knowing what to do next.
“I have to get this shampoo out of my hair,” I say resignedly. “Before the water goes cold.”
“Okay,” he says a little roughly. “I’ll just—Maybe I can—Okay. I’m going to keep hold of your hands, okay? Hop a little to your…right? I think? Just hold on to my hands and lean back to rinse your hair. I’ve got you.”
This too, proves difficult, given that I can’t put a lot of weight on my foot, but I manage to sort of sideways moonwalk under the spray like a hobbling magician and finally feel the warm water pouring over my face.
I tilt my head back to let it rinse the lingering shampoo from my hair, keeping my eyes shut tight until I’m almost positive I’ve gotten it all out.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I think I’ve got it. I had a towel on the toilet. Do you think you could…?”
“Yeah,” he answers quickly. “Grab one of my hands with both of yours. Keep steady.”
I do it, gasping a little when I feel the brush of his hand against my hip.
“Shit,” he hisses. “Sorry. I’m just trying to turn the water off.”
“I-it’s fine,” I manage, my skin feeling too warm where he’s touched me. “Hurry up with the towel. It’s cold in here now.”
“Okay, I’ve got it.” He gives my hands a tug. “Can you step out?”
“Maybe? Let me just—Fuck.”
He catches me, because of course he does.
I’m fully aware that my naked, wet boobs are pressed to what I think is flannel (let’s be real, of course it’s flannel), and I can feel the bite of a shirt button pressing into one of my nipples.
One of his hands is still wrapped in both of mine, but the other—the one that was holding the towel—is now wrapped around my upper arm, holding me steady against him.
God, and his scent. It’s not a combination that should be mouthwatering, but I find myself wanting to lick him all the same.
Neither of us speaks at first—hell, I might not even be breathing—but it really is getting colder by the second, and a cold, wet ass is one heck of a motivation to not let awkwardness get the best of you.
“Don’t say one word about me being clumsy.”
His hand might flex at my arm, but I’m not sure. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“The towel,” I mumble, my voice still sounding too loud now that the water is off. “Can you wrap it around me?”
“Yeah,” he breathes. “Just…hold still.”
No trouble there, I think. Even though when I’m standing this close, I’m assaulted again by the warmth and scent of him. So much so that it makes something pulse low in my belly. Makes me even more aware of the fact that I’m naked with him. Again.
His hands move over me carefully when I release my grip on him, and I feel the terry cloth gingerly meeting my skin as he slowly works the towel around my body.
I replace his hands with mine as soon as my fingers can find the towel’s edges, quickly covering myself with it for some semblance of modesty as I attempt to straighten.
“I can help you to your room,” he tells me. “Just grab my hand.”
Once again I find myself holding Hunter’s hand, but this time he pulls my arm up and over his shoulder to tuck me into his side, no doubt trying to support my weight so I can hobble to my room.
If I weren’t so painfully aware of how close my naked body is to him, I might actually die from embarrassment.
But I am aware. I am very aware.
It’s hard not to be aware when the thin light of dusk is still spilling in from my bedroom window, less so now than it was when I got into the shower, but still enough that I can make us both out as Hunter guides me to my bed.
I peek up at his face to find it dutifully trained upward at the ceiling, his lips pressed into a tight line as he helps me along.
“I’m not looking,” he assures me.
A childish part of me pouts somewhere in the back of my mind.
I mean, doesn’t he want to look? Even a little?
It’s not as if he hasn’t already seen it.
I quickly squash that ridiculousness though.
Mostly because I’m still hobbling and growing increasingly colder by the second—it’s hard to feel indignant when your nipples could cut glass.
“My clothes are on my bed,” I tell him. “If you could help me sit down, I think I can—”
“Right,” he cuts me off, guiding me toward it.
He gently helps me into a sitting position on top of the quilt, quickly turning his broad back to give me privacy. “Do you want me to step outside?”
“Um.” I’ve got one foot in my underwear at this point and am struggling to get them on with my throbbing ankle, and I know the pants are going to be twice as difficult. “I might…need your help. But stay turned around. Just in case.”
“Okay.”
I manage to get my underwear on after a minute of huffing, and I grab for my sweater next, figuring it will be an easier task to tackle.
I shrug into it sans bra, thinking that the material is thick enough to hide that fact.
Not to mention it’s growing darker by the second.
The pants do indeed prove to be a problem—it’s hard to pull them up while I’m in a sitting position.
I have one pant leg mostly to my knee, but the other—the one that goes over my injured ankle—is being a little bitch about it all.
“Hunter,” I whine. “I can’t get my pants on.”
I think he makes a sort of groaning sound in the back of his throat, but I might be imagining it.