rug that has just the right amount of warm sunlight for his liking.
I grin down at him, pat his head a few times, and proceed to head upstairs to see if Luca has finished unpacking.
“Luca?” I call out as I step over the master bedroom threshold, but he is nowhere to be found. And from what I can tell, he’s a stickler for keeping his shit organized. His big hiking backpack is now deflated and folded up perfectly in the corner of the room, and everything that was inside of it has magically disappeared. “Where are you?”
“In the shower!” he calls back.
Right on cue, my ears pick up the sounds of the shower filtering in from the master bathroom, and my eyes spot his discarded clothes sitting haphazardly on the hardwood floor, right in front of the walk-in closet.
Luca naked and in the shower? Yes, please.
The visuals that fill my brain make me smile.
Once I make my way into the bathroom, I don’t hesitate to remove my clothes and step inside.
Instantly, my eyes find a naked Luca with water dripping down his firm body in the most delicious way. My oh my, what a glorious sight this is.
“What are you doing in here?” he asks with one eye open; the other is firmly shut while his hands are busy lathering shampoo into his hair.
Steam billows up from the spray of hot water, and I willingly put myself under the warm stream coming from the large shower head placed at the center of the ceiling.
“I thought I’d enjoy a nice hot shower too.” I grin up at him. “After going without the option of a shower, you start to enjoy the little things in life.”
If there is one thing this crazy adventure has taught me, it’s that toilets and hot showers are gifts from God. I will, for the rest of my life, be grateful for those two things.
Mark my words, I will never take the ability to pee in an actual toilet or take a hot shower for granted.
He snorts and puts his head under the water to wash out the shampoo. “You act like we were in the woods for months. It was a few days.”
“Six days, actually.”
“Spending the night at Lou’s doesn’t count.”
“Fine. Five days.” I squirt some body wash into my hands and start scrubbing it into my skin.
“And the last night, you chose to sleep under the stars.”
“You’re annoying,” I mutter, and he just chuckles.
Once I’m finished with the body wash, I grab the shampoo bottle from the ledge and pour some into my hand. When I start to lather it into my hair, Luca shoos my hands out of the way and takes over. “Are you going to wash my hair?” I peek up at him with one eye, and he smirks down at me.
“I am.”
“Are you okay?” I ask, still looking at him with one eye. “I’m starting to worry that maybe an alien took over your body or something when we were out in those damn woods.”
He laughs. “What are you talking about?”
“The first Luca I met was all broody and grumpy and, well, kind of an asshole. He certainly wasn’t a Luca I could picture doing something sweet like this.”
But damn, it feels good.
His fingers are heaven, massaging my scalp and hitting all the right spots.
“Maybe you’re the one whose body’s been abducted by an alien,” he says, and amusement tickles his voice. “The Billie who invited herself on my hiking trip was pushy and loud and abrupt and, truthfully, threw a lot of temper tantrums along the way. She certainly wasn’t a Billie I could picture letting me wash her hair without telling me how to wash her hair.”
“I wasn’t that pushy.”
He snorts. “If you were any pushier, we both would’ve fallen off that fucking mountain we climbed to get to Lou’s.”
“All right, so I was a little pushy. But you were grumpy as hell.”
“A lot pushy. And I was grumpy. I didn’t want you to come on the trip. Actually, I didn’t want you at my cabin at all.”
“But do you still feel that way?”
He grins down at me. “Pretty sure I already told you the answer to that last night before you seduced me into sex.”
A smile starts at the corner of my mouth and shoots straight across to the other side. “Good.”
“Be careful, princess. If you smile any bigger, it might consume your whole face.”
“Shut up and wash my hair, Lucky.”
He laughs. “Now there’s the Billie I first