Page 69 of The Love Interest

He places ingredients for a salad on the counter near the double sink and then looks around. “I’ll show you the guest room,” he says, gesturing for me to follow him up the staircase.

We both reach down to pick up my backpack, his hand on mine around a shoulder strap. Neither of us pulls away. I can feel his eyes on me, but I can’t look at him.

“I got it,” he says in a hushed voice.

I slip my hand out from under his. “Thank you.”

He heads up the stairs, and it’s not my fault that his butt is directly in my eyeline. That’s just how it goes when you’re walking up the stairs behind someone. I clear my throat. “So when was the last time you came? Here? The last time you came up here? To thecabin?”

“Back in July, I guess. Been a while.”

I wonder if he’s ever brought other women here. I wonder if he and Sophie used to come here. I wonder how he can seem so casual about the fact that I’m here with him now.

There’s a narrow hallway on the second floor. He opens the door to the room nearest the stairs and turns on the overhead light. It’s a perfect-sized room with a queen-size bed that’s covered in cozy bedding. I like it so much I want to cry.

Emmett carefully places my backpack on the armchair then walks out and opens another door, across the hall. “This can be your bathroom.”

I skip over to it. I was trying to act cool, but fuck it. I’m so happy to be here, I’m skipping. And now I really am going to cry because there’s a claw-foot tub in the huge walk-in shower.

“The master bathroom has a steam shower, if you want to use that.”

A tiny high-pitched sound escapes my lips. I think I just meowed like a kitten. “Cool.”

“I’m actually going to take a shower,” he offers calmly. “I didn’t get a chance to when I was at my parents’ house.”

“Cool. Cool. I’ll go down and make dinner.”

“There’s salad and pasta,” he says. “Go ahead and open up the wine, if you want to.”

“I will. Cool.”

“Cool.” He half smirks at me and then goes down the hall to what I assume is the master bedroom.

When I’ve taken a few steps down the stairs, he says, “Fiona.”

I turn back to him. “Yeah?”

“Belated merry Christmas.”

“Yeah. You too.”

He nods, pulling his sweater off over his head as he goes into his bedroom. I get a glimpse of his toned torso and a hint of light-brown chest hair. If this were his novel, I’d follow him in there when he’s taking a shower.

I really,reallywant to see him naked.

But this is reality.

So I continue down the stairs to make dinner while the man I’m most attracted to in the world is naked in the shower on the floor above me.

32

EMMETT

In a perfect world, naked Fiona Walker would have joined me in my steam shower.

In an Emmett Ford book, she would have been fully clothed, waiting to be slowly undressed in the bedroom.

In this world, I am now alone in my bedroom, clean and getting dressed, super chill after fucking my hand once I’d realized I was going to be showering solo. I can smell the pasta sauce cooking downstairs because Fiona is in the kitchen. She’s probably not naked, but I can’t complain.