Which was good. It was a mercy she definitely needed since the room was suddenly too hot and the air was snapping and sizzling again, and it felt like a lot of that snap and sizzle was going on south of the belt she wasn’t wearing. A jolt of straight lust zinged to her stomach until her muscles felt as tight as Blaze’s looked.
He stepped back, letting the t-shirt drop onto the floor. There was no way he was flexing, not with his arms the way they were. Was it possible to flex a chest? She had to wonder, because god, he looked good. No, not just good. Mouth-watering. As in, she literally had to suck the drool that was pooling in the front of her mouth to the back of her throat so she could swallow. Loudly.
“You should- go try out that shower,” she said breathlessly. God, she wished she wasn’t breathless. She was just like all those bimbos that Blaze told to bend over his desk.
“I should.”
He didn’t move.
She couldn’t breathe.
“Should I call you if I need help?”
Oh. My. God. Before her ovaries could combust, she forced out a coherent answer. “Only if you plan to leave your jeans on.”
“Then I’d have to drive us home and pilot us soaking wet.”
“Yeah, well, I can think of worse things.”
“I can think of better.”
“Can you please just shut your trap and get in the shower already? I really want to get home.”
“So many things to do with your evening when you’re single and a virgin.” Blaze yawned like he was bored. He made no move to walk in the direction of the bathroom.
“Shut up. I have friends. I go out and do things. I have hobbies. I have a life, you know. Things aren’t just about- about trying to get laid and bang everything that walks.”
“Bang,” Blaze chuckled. God, he was so infuriating. “I can’t believe you just said bang. The girl who knows nothing about banging or getting laid.”
“I know enough to know that too much of it is a bad thing. You should see the way people view you, Blaze Hanson. You’re disgusting. You think you’re a stud or whatever. You think you’re hot shit because you can get any girl you want, screw her and spit her out like a bite of bad, grizzly old steak? You think that people should find that attractive in a person? Your below-the-belt organ might work perfectly fine but the other one in your chest that should be working isn’t. You have no heart and no soul. You’re cold and unfeeling and rude and arrogant.”
Blaze studied his hand like he was checking to see if he’d broken a nail, clearly bored with her tantrum. “Tell me how you really feel.”
He winked at her as he took a step in her direction. He grinned when she faltered backward on instinct. She didn’t like the burning look in his eyes. He moved like sex and looked like depravity, and god help her, she knew he’d be her next favorite sin if she let him.
“And by the way…” he took another step and another and she kept backing up until she was pressed up against the dresser counter thing with the fridge in it. “I never tried a steak I didn’t like.”
All the breath left her lungs at the predatory gleam in Blaze’s eyes, but then he skirted past her and sauntered into the bathroom. He shut the door gently behind him, just because she half expected him to slam it, just for emphasis.
She should have known better. Blaze didn’t do anything she thought he’d do. He wasn’t really anything like the man she thought he was. The man everyone thought he was. He was annoying and rude, cocky as hell, egotistical, an asshole to the core.
So why couldn’t she stop feeling like she was melting in all the wrong spots and mushy in all the others? It didn’t matter that Blaze had a body that literally made her drool. Those granite abs couldn’t make up for the fact that he wasn’t a nice person. None of him could. Not the body that looked like he was a professional athlete. Like he spent most of the day working out. It didn’t matter that most women would sell their soul for five seconds alone with Blaze. It didn’t even matter that during the day, she’d caught fleeting glimpses of something else- a Blaze that no one knew and saw. Melting mush was not what she wanted to be.
She’d just about succeeded in calming the burning riot of protest going on inside of her, just about convinced herself that it was never, ever, ever going to happen with Blaze, ever, when the gentle hum of the shower was interrupted with a hoarse yell and a dull, wicked sounding thud.