Chapter 8 Briar #3
Right then, Jonah returns. With the extralong-handled rake that we typically use to clear the clogs, which we use from the platform on the edge of the pond, where the process is relatively no muss and no fuss.
I usually only get my boots muddy and that’s it.
I’ve definitely never gone full-dive into the habitat. I don’t think anyone has.
Wind taken out of his sails, Dominic sags. “Oh.”
“It’s okay,” I tell him as he starts to wade back out of the water. “Your way worked. And the flamingos will be talking about you for months. Listen.”
I point to where Marion has rejoined the flock and is honking like, You’re never gonna believe the shit I saw.
“I just wanted to help,” he grumbles.
“Recent events notwithstanding, I don’t always need help. But thank you for wanting to.” I am grateful for his assistance. I don’t like needing it, or being seen as someone who needs to be rescued, but I do appreciate that his instinct is to be a helper. That’s a rare and special trait in my book.
“Well, at least I made you laugh,” he says, the self-deprecation out of character given his usual cockiness.
“Laugh?” I ask, and he nods.
“I’d wrestle that damn bird every day if it means making you laugh again,” he says softly, and my heart races in my chest. The way he looks at me, he knows it too. He’s proud of what he did, like my laughter belongs just to him.
Maybe it does.
“Come on, I’ll buy you a change of clothes from the gift shop as a thank-you.
If they have something to fit you.” I take his measure visually, reminded again how muscled he is.
I doubt they’ll have anything properly in his size, but there’s not really any other option.
Dominic is covered in stinky mud, and as it dries, it’s going to begin to flake off, making a mess in his truck.
In the end, we scour the gift shop’s stockroom for anything remotely his size and we’re able to get him a pair of orange swim trunks, a neon-green T-shirt with the zoo’s logo emblazoned on it, and a pair of flip-flops left over from the Fourth of July sale.
None of it is ideal, but beggars can’t be choosers, or at least they shouldn’t be when the alternative is going naked.
Although it might be interesting . . . in a purely scientific way, of course . . . to see Dominic nude. All those muscles would be a textbook study of anatomy and physiology, a class I’m suddenly remembering with new appreciation.
“Here,” I say, handing Dominic a beach towel, also with the zoo’s logo. “You can wipe off with that. It won’t help with the smell, but at least it won’t be seeping into your pores anymore.”
His brows knit together, and he sounds worried. “This smell is seeping into me? Like I’m always gonna smell like shrimp and shit?” He rubs the towel furiously over his face and then along his arms as I laugh.
My laughter dies in my throat when Dominic reaches down and pulls his ruined shirt over his head in one fell swoop, revealing a body that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.
I swear to God the man is built like a brick shithouse, as my dad used to say.
Or probably still does. I wouldn’t know since we barely talk.
Dominic doesn’t have those bumpy ridges of abs like the models on romance books.
No, his stomach is just one big, solid sheet of muscle, the individual abs delineated by slight lines more than deep ridges.
His pecs are topped with flat, brown nipples that are currently puckered up from the cold water in a way that I know would have Trina panting.
And his biceps? Now that I can see them in their full glory, I want to wrap my hands around them to measure them. I have no idea why, but I do.
It’s not until I realize that Dominic has gone still that I drag my eyes up. His dark eyes are locked on me, watching me watch him, and filled with fiery heat that could probably burn me up quicker than a blink.
Oh shit! He totally caught me staring like a sex-starved lunatic.
“Sorry!” I rush to say, dropping my gaze to stare at the toes of my muck boots. There’s a glob of mud already drying on the left one. “I usually only see animals naked, not men. I mean, people. I mean . . .”
“It’s okay, Briar. I don’t mind if you look at me,” he says, his voice low and rough, like a beard across the inside of my thighs, and just as arousing.
Slowly, I let my eyes climb his legs, linger for a heartbeat on the ridge I can see in his jeans, and then back up to his bare chest. I’m not brave enough to meet his gaze.
But I watch rapt as he drops his hands to his waist, unbuttons his jeans, and then unzips them.
As he starts to shove them down, I finally come to my senses and whirl around, giving him my back.
“Let me know if you need another towel or anything. I can go grab it for you.”
I turn my eyes to the ceiling, irritated with myself.
Yes, Dominic is hotter than Hades on a summer day.
But I’m not doing that. Not doing him. Sure, sometimes I’d like a dick with a pulse, and not just a pulse mode, but I need my life to be as unmessy as possible.
And if there’s one thing Dominic Lee is, it’s messy.