Page 29 of The Cruiser
“I know,” he says, facing the other way. “I ran into Mirielle in the lobby. She asked me to bring it up.”
“You have it? Oh, thank god. Can you give it to me? Without turning around. My room is at the end of the hall. I’ll be quick. I’m mostly packed.”
“No, no, no,” he insists. “Wait.” In one smooth tug, he untucks his shirt from his dress pants. His elbows flare out as he unbuttons it, and he hands it to me over his shoulder. “Put this on first.”
The functioning universe, the one where I’m supposed to take his shirt and put it on, disappears. I’m now in the alternate universe, the one where I forget I’m nearly naked in a public place and all I can do is stare.
His body.
Wow. Just wow.
Not just fit, he’s astonishingly fit.
No gym creates muscles like that. Tanned and rippled, his strength comes from hauling anchors off of seabeds and piling heavy chain link neatly in a circle. His powerful arms can control a rogue mast in gale force winds. I don’t know if he does any of these things, but he isn’t sculpted by anything done on land. His is a body chiseled by the sea.
“Are you going to take it?” he asks, shaking the shirt.
My attention snaps back. “Uh, yeah, thanks.”
Warm from his body heat, the brushed cotton drapes on my skin like a layer of gossamer. It smells delicious. My trembling fingers fumble with the pearlescent buttons, like I’ve never buttoned a shirt before in my life. When what’s left of my dignity is covered, I tell him I’m done.
He turns around, plunging me back into the alternate universe, the one where my fantasies are not only alive and well, but raging. As my mother would say, sweet mother of Christ. How is it possible for one man to be so genetically blessed? Hard obliques carve into a slim waist. Two copper nipples stand at attention from the sudden shock of AC. The only hair on his ripped body is a trim line of dark blond fuzz disappearing under an Hermès belt buckle.
Handing over the key card, he watches me watch him with a bemused expression. He’s enjoying this far more than I’d like him to be. “What happened?” he asks.
“I was trying to…” My face flushes with deep embarrassment. “Um, never mind.”
I brush past him and can feel his eyes on me all the way down the hall. The key card of course is fiddly, denying me twice but finally the lock clicks open.
“I’ll be right back,” I say.
Once I’m inside, my heart rate dips but the fog of embarrassment doesn’t dissipate as quickly. Never again will I multitask wrapped only in a towel. And I need a minute to digest what I just saw. Oh my god, he is hot, hot, hot. Smooth and muscled and so cavalier about it. Maybe it’s a French thing, being comfortable with nudity. Or, as I strip out of the warm finery of his shirt and into my Lanvin dress, maybe it’s a Morgan thing.
Whatever.
I’ll survive this.
I touch up my hair and with my game face back on, open the door.
I guess it’s not enough that he’s hypnotically handsome and built for serious debauchery. Why not be as cool as James Dean too? Morgan leans against the opposite wall, arms crossed, prominent biceps flexed. He gazes at me nonchalantly, just another shirtless hunk loitering in the hallway of a five-star hotel. His belt buckle is awfully hard not to look at.
I hand his shirt off, sad to see it go. “Thanks for the donation. I’ll be down in fifteen?”
“Don’t forget this room is booked until the following Sunday,” he says. “Just pack what you need for Genoa.”
“Right. Thanks for the reminder.”
He buttons himself up like it’s no biggie, dressing in front of a woman he barely knows. Sapphire M cufflinks sparkle as he adjusts them, and he’s unafraid not only to match my stare but also make me feel naked all over again. “No offense to your dress,” he says, “but you look better in my shirt.”
His daredevil wink is pure scamp and before he decides to unzip his pants and tuck his shirt back in, I mumble something incoherent and escape back into my room.
Falling back against the closed door, I drop my head in my hands and laugh.
Jesus.
What a way to kick off the morning.
