Sarah Morgan - Christmas Ever After

He doubted it was possible for Sky to go anywhere without drawing attention. Even bruised, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. And that, he reminded himself, was another reason he was never going to lay a finger on her. In his experience very beautiful women were hard work. “You’re not going anywhere. And you’re not in a state to take a shower. You might pass out.”

“I won’t, but if you don’t hear me singing you can come in and rescue me.”

She’d be naked and wet.

He’d probably drown. “Sky—”

“I’ve already seen you naked. Nice body by the way.” She managed a smile. “Not bad for a puny academic. I guess that comes from wrestling alligators or whatever it is you do to impress your fan club of adoring women. Call me fussy, but I hate having blood in my hair. We both know you and I have nothing in common and anyway, you loathe me so we’re perfectly safe even if you do have to barge in and rescue me.”

He’d assumed their encounter earlier had confirmed that certain parts of him didn’t loathe her.

“Fine. Take a shower. I’ll be outside.” Leaving the door open, he removed himself from the bathroom, trying not to think of her naked and wet.

He pulled on jeans and a shirt and called his friend.

He’d always intended to make the call, just not under these circumstances.

As he put his phone down, he heard Skylar’s voice.

“Alec?” Her words were muffled. “I’m stuck.”

Swearing under his breath, he walked back into the bathroom and found her with her arms up, the dress covering her head and leaving the whole of her lower body exposed apart from a thin wisp of silver silk that covered the most vulnerable part of her.

Alec averted his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to take my dress off like you told me to.” She wriggled, her hips moving. “My arms are trapped and I can’t see what I’m doing. I’m feeling dizzy and I don’t want to throw up in my dress. It’s taken enough punishment.”

“Stand still.” Teeth clenched, he reached for the dress, the movement bringing him into contact with warm, bare skin. She smelled like roses and summer rain. “Doesn’t this thing have a zip?”

“No, it’s stretchy. It pulls on and off.”

He felt as if he was being boiled alive. “You should have pulled it down, not up.”

“I know that now, but it’s the first time I’ve worn it and I didn’t have a head injury when I tried it on.”

The situation would have been comical if he hadn’t been so tense.

Alec took hold of the dress, tugged gently and the fabric slid over her head. Which would have been a cause for celebration, except that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

He caught a full on eyeful of lush, creamy breasts tipped with pink and then she grabbed a towel and covered herself.

“That makes us equal.”

He backed off, searing his skin on the heated towel rail. “My friend is on the way over here now. As luck would have it, he just finished a shift.” And the sooner he arrived the better. He didn’t want to be alone with Skylar a moment longer than he had to be. “I’ll give you some privacy.”

He walked toward the door, keeping his back to her.

“Good. That’s thoughtful of you.” The shower hissed and then she cried out. “Ow! Crap, that hurts. How do you turn this thing off? Alec, you have to help me. I’m drowning.”

Wondering what the hell he’d done to deserve this sort of punishment, Alec stopped in the doorway and turned.

She was naked in the shower, her hands over her head to protect it. “Alec?”

“Yeah, I’m here.” His voice sounded as if he had a bad dose of the flu.

“You sound weird.”

“That’s because you have water in your ears. Stand still. I don’t want to soak my clothes. My luggage on this trip is ninety percent Christmas gifts. Close your eyes.” He picked up the shampoo, reduced the power of the jet and lathered her hair as quickly as possible. “This is your fault for having fairy-princess hair. You should have dyed it a different color and cut it short.”

“I never dye my hair.”

He rinsed her hair, careful to protect her wound, watching as the water slid down her body. It flowed over the curve of her hips to the shadow and light that nestled in the secret places between her thighs. The brief glimpse was enough to confirm she was indeed a natural blonde.

Heat flashed across his skin. He fought the urge to lower his mouth to her neck and breathe her in. He wanted to trace every delicate curve with his tongue, taste every inch of her.

“Alec?” Her eyes were shut, her lashes clumped with droplets of water. “Are you still there?”

He stood, trying to work out how he could be dizzy when he wasn’t the one who had banged his head.

“Yeah.” His voice emerged from his dry throat, rough and rasping. “I’m here.”

And it was killing him.

“Could you hand me a towel?”

In the grip of a brutal desire, he groped for the controls of the shower and then for the towels he’d left within reach beyond the shower screen. She took one from him and tied it around her like a sarong. He used the other to dry her hair, avoiding her injury.

“I’ve often wondered if people would take me more seriously if I dyed it black.” Her voice was muffled by the towel. “There have been studies, you know.”

“Don’t dye it black.”

“The weird thing is, my brothers all have dark hair. When I was little, I decided that a wicked witch had probably kidnapped me from my proper family and dropped me in the wrong house by accident. I assumed my parents would have given me back if they’d had a return address. They think I’m wasting my life doing arty things. So does Richard. What do you think?”

His brain had ceased to work from the moment he’d walked into the bathroom, but if he’d been capable of rational thought he would have been thinking that he didn’t want to know more about her.

As far as he was concerned, the more superficial his knowledge of her was, the better.

“What do I think?” He dried the ends of her hair and then stepped back out of the danger zone. “I think you charge ridiculous prices.”

“Really?”

No, not really, but the way she was looking at him, her luminous blue eyes wistful and vulnerable, hardened his resolve.

“Yes, really.” He slung the towel over the rail and struggled for words that would ensure she continued to think he was the big bad wolf. It was safer for both of them that way. Safer if he didn’t follow his instincts, which suggested he carry her back to the bed and this time join her in it. “Your nod to Greek mythology might be charming to someone with no depth of knowledge, but that doesn’t change the fact that there are significant inaccuracies.” Droplets of water clung to her cheek. Without thinking, he lifted his hand and wiped them away with his thumb. Her skin was as soft and smooth as the petals of a rose and he felt her still under his touch.

“You took the time to look round my exhibition.”

He let his hand drop. “I was killing time until I could get to speak to you.”

“Of course you were. You planned to leave the first moment you could.” Her cheeks were flushed. “Don’t be embarrassed. I was hoping you’d leave quickly. Now I’m glad you didn’t.”

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

They stared at each other for a moment and then he heard a tap on the door and stepped away from her, relieved to have an excuse to walk away.

“That will be Michael.” He grabbed a robe from the back of the door, thrust it toward her and escaped from the steamy bathroom.

The sleeves of his shirt were wet from the shower and he rolled them up on his way to the door. At least with someone else in the room he was less likely to commit an act of gross indecency.