He was losing his mind. This was Katie. His friend. His best buddy. His pal.
Except looking at his best buddy’s ass shouldn’t make him thankful he was wearing sweats because if he’d had on jeans, his dick would have busted out the zipper teeth trying to get at her.
Well, shit. Katie Davis was definitely not just one of the guys.
*
Katie was looking for something delicious and bad for her, but she’d already gorged on brownies earlier, so she settled for pulling out a pint of blueberries. With a little milk and lot of sugar, it would satisfy the sweet tooth.
She grabbed the milk with her other hand and used her hip to bump the fridge door closed. When she turned to set them on the counter, she saw Josh staring at her. Or, more accurately, glaring at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Put some damn clothes on. We don’t run around half-naked here.”
Katie looked down at her tank top and boxers. “Shirt. Shorts. Pretty much the opposite of naked.”
“You’re not wearing a…” He waved his hand in the direction of her chest, swore under his breath and stormed out.
Katie looked down again. Okay, so she wasn’t wearing a bra. And, whether it was the chilled air from the fridge or the way Josh had looked at her, her nipples were taking full advantage of the lack of constraint.
“You’ve never seen nipples before?” she called after him.
It sounded as if he tripped on the stairs and he cursed again, but he didn’t come back or answer the question.
The moment was sweeter than teaspoons of sugar heaped on blueberries. He may have been glaring at her and he may have snapped at her, but when Josh stormed past her, his sweats had been sporting a tent worthy of the cover of a Cabela’s catalog.
She really hoped he didn’t break anything tripping on the stairs like that.
Humming a Christmas carol under her breath, she made her snack and sat down at the table.
The holiday spirit slowly seeped away, though, as she picked at her blueberries. After all these years, Josh had to finally notice her when he was already planning his escape from the lodge and Whitford. And her.
Not that it mattered. A man noticing a woman’s breasts wasn’t exactly a life-changing event. But, hot damn, it had felt good.
After rinsing her bowl, Katie turned off the lights and made her way back upstairs. She paused just for a moment between Josh’s door and hers, listening. No snoring, which meant he was still awake. And as she stood there, she heard the telltale rustle of tossing and turning.
Thoughts of Josh naked and tangled in sheets were put on hold when the sound of her mother coughing broke the silence. Katie tensed, but it sounded a lot less brutal than it had before. Once it passed, Katie went into her room and quietly closed her door.
Then she leaned back against it, letting the wood cool her skin. There was no way she was going to sleep tonight. She’d slowly been working toward letting go of her attraction to Josh. Not that she’d had a lot of success, but she’d been trying. Now it ran unchecked again, fired up by the way he’d looked at her.
It was still dark when her alarm signaled the end of tossing and turning. Because she didn’t want to wake her mom, she crept down the stairs and used the shower in one of the guest bathrooms. She’d be cleaning them all before guests arrived anyway. Then she grabbed a yogurt and a banana and went out into the cold.
Rather than risk running into Josh again while she was still feeling warm and fuzzy from the resurgence of her Josh-based fantasies, she’d eat her breakfast at the shop before she opened it. She had one of those single-serve coffee brewers, too, for customers. Copious amounts of caffeine might help get her back on track.
Though it wasn’t very likely, she hoped it would be busy. Anything that kept her mind off the way Josh had looked at her. She had a few hours away from him and she intended to spend them not thinking about him. Not much, anyway.
*
Josh woke up surprised he’d managed to sleep at all. Every time he closed his eyes, all he could see was Katie in that skimpy tank top and shorts, which had led to an erection that refused to die.
Since he wouldn’t allow himself to jerk off to mental pictures of his friend, he’d suffered. A lot.
He screwed up making Rosie’s tea and managed to splash it over his hand when he dumped it in the sink. Then he burned her English muffin. Managed to discard that one without injuring himself, but it wasn’t a good start to the day.
Thankfully, Katie had gone to work, so he didn’t have to face her yet. But Rosie was waiting for her breakfast.
He set the breakfast tray on the floor in the hall so he could crack her door open. She opened her eyes and smiled. “I’m up.”
Managing to get the tray to her lap without dumping the whole thing seemed like a small victory, but he’d take what he could get.
“You need to go get a haircut,” she said before he could make his escape.