Real Fake Love (Copper Valley Fireballs #2)(35)

No, that’s not a butt.

That’s an ass.

Muscle. And curves. And dimples. And muscle. And the backs of his thighs. And— I wrench my gaze to the window above the toilet. “You can stand there and make noises like you’re in here.”

“But then I won’t come out wet.”

And now I’m wet, and not because of the shower. Thanks, Luca. “It’s six million degrees in here. We’re all already wet.”

“I can’t still smell like sweat and dead leaves and ant guts when I leave this bathroom, Henri.”

“Then we’ll both take fast showers and fake that we’re in here together.”

“You told me yesterday that you’ve seen naked men before and that we had to do this.”

“Yes, but you’ve never seen me naked before, and I’m having a very bad day, and maybe I don’t want to do this right now.”

“Do you have four belly buttons and an eyeball in the middle of your breast?”

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Seen one, you’ve seen them all. And I’ve seen more than one, so trust me, it’s just a body.”

I glare at him, which is a mistake, because glaring at him means looking at him, and he’s standing there stark naked.

With everything hanging out.

Hoo boy.

Naked Luca.

He’s right, of course. He’s not the first naked man I’ve seen.

But he is the first naked man I’ve seen with muscles like that, and a scruffy jawline like that, and eyes like that, and basically, it’s like being in a room with one of the heroes from my books come to life and sculpted before me, and right now, I like my heroes way more than I like any man I’ve ever been naked with, which is confusing all the neurons firing in my brain and overwhelming my hormonal systems.

Which is to say, I’m so freaking relieved that I’m not a guy, or I’d be popping a visible boner.

Whereas he’s totally unaffected in the would-be-boner area.

Duh. Of course he’s unaffected. He can only see my eyes, my nose, my forehead—where that massive vein I got from my dad is undoubtedly throbbing—and my hair.

My crazy, curly hair with the double misplaced cowlicks that make it look like I’m related to Lucifer when I get stupid and cut it this short.

When I was little, my eyebrows used to point wrong too.

It’s entirely possible I’ve had so many failed weddings because my parents and sister always put that picture in the rehearsal dinner slide show.

The one of me in a red dress from when I was six and fisting a fork with the tines up and the flash hit my eyes wrong and made me look like I had the fires of hell burning inside to go with the weird horn curls and the tilted-up devil brows.

Luca’s face twitches, but he’s grinning through it. “Your brain is a terrifying place, isn’t it?”

“Only one way to tell.”

“I’m not going to ask you what you’re thinking.”

“I meant you could read my books, Mr. Know It All.”

Someone knocks at the bathroom door. Dogzilla whines. That’s a bad sign.

“Luca?” his mother calls. “I’m coming in.”

My eyes try to pop out of my head. My heart tries to gather all my other internal organs and assure them this is going to be okay, but we all know it’s lying.

And Luca?

Luca dives into the shower.

With me.

“No, Mother, you’re not,” he yells back.

“I have to pee!”

“Hold it!”

“I can’t hold it! I gave birth to you. Do you know what that does to a woman’s bladder?”

“Should’ve been doing your Kegels,” Nonna calls.

Luca drops his head to the shower wall. His golden skin is speckled with water droplets that are getting thick enough to slide down all the curves of his various muscles that I usually know the names for, but my brain has short-circuited.

He doesn’t smell like ant guts.

He smells like delicious. Like whatever the male version of brunch is. Not because he smells like food, but because he smells better than anything I’ve ever smelled, and brunch is the best-smelling meal of them all.

I blow out a breath, turn my back so he can’t see my private bits, and stick my head under the hard needle-prick pounding of the water.

Yet, I can still hear it when the racehorse known as Luca’s mother starts doing her business.

Holy—just wow.

That’s some seriously loud peeing.

I glance back at Luca.

His green eyes meet mine.

His mother keeps on keeping on with her toilet business.

And then she farts.

My eyeballs are once again in danger of popping right out of their sockets. Luca’s face is contorting thirty-two ways to Sunday, but this time, he’s not annoyed.

Oh, no.

He’s trying not to laugh.

His mother farts again, the sound echoing first in the toilet bowl and then around the small bathroom, and he sticks a knuckle in his mouth as he wrenches his gaze away from me, but it’s too late.

I saw it.

I saw Luca Rossi’s full smile, all that mirth dancing in his eyes, his cheeks dimpling up behind that layer of dark scruff, and I want to lick it.