Read Listed: Volume II for Free Online

herself to leave spilled water on the floor—not in a place as
nice as this—so she grabbed a hand towel and bent down to wipe it up as best
she could.
    “Emily?”
Paul’s voice came from across the parlor. “What’s wrong? Emily?”  He
sounded urgent, worried. Then the overhead lights came on.
    “Nothing,”
she groaned, “I’m sorry. I’m just clumsy.” She wiped hurriedly, trying to get
it done before Paul came into the kitchen. She felt her cheeks grow warm. She
really should have put on more clothes.
    She
wasn’t quick enough. Her back was to the entrance of the kitchen, but she could
feel him standing there, assessing the situation, including the empty bottle of
water, the wet floor, and Emily's hurried wiping.
    And
very likely her overexposed butt.
    “I’m
sorry,” she repeated, finishing up the floor before she turned around to see
his expression. “I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can go back to bed.”
    “You
should have turned the lights on. Why were you trying to grope around in the
dark?”
    “I
had the lamp on. I’d just turned it off before I knocked over the water.” She
finished wiping and straightened up, hanging the towel on the side of the sink.
“Your sage advice is much appreciated, though,” she added sarcastically,
deciding she wasn't going to be self-conscious about her sleepwear. He saw her
in her pajamas all the time, and this wasn't that much worse.
    She
turned around then but froze when her eyes landed on Paul.
    She’d
always only seen him fully dressed, and it was somehow shocking to see him now,
shirtless and wearing nothing but pajama pants. Her eyes automatically
registered the sight of his smooth shoulders, strong arms, efficiently sculpted
chest, and hard abdomen. His black pajama pants were made of a very soft, thin
fabric, and they molded the powerful contours of his legs.
    They
were also riding low on hips, and there was something mesmerizing about the way
his lean abdomen tapered down to the waistline of his pants, as if the rippling
lines of his body were leading her eyes down on purpose.
    Emily
gulped and turned away, pretending to wipe her damp hands on a dry towel. She
suddenly felt hot and jittery, and it was a highly unsettling feeling. She’d
found men attractive before, of course, but she’d never felt so tense and
heated just from the sight of a man’s bare chest.
    “Are
you feeling all right?” Paul asked, walking over to pick up the towel and wipe
some water Emily hadn’t noticed off the counter.
    “Yeah.
Just needed some water. Sorry about all the ruckus.” She glanced over her
shoulder to look at him again, and this time she got the profile view,
highlighting his flat belly and the curve of his tight ass, since he'd turned
slightly away from her too. Her eyes darted down, quite unconsciously, to his
groin. He didn't have a hard-on or anything, of course, but the soft fabric
didn’t leave anything to the imagination, and she definitely saw something there.
    She
flashed briefly to the idea that they were married. They could be having sex.
They could have sex tonight, if both of them wanted to.
    She
wanted to have sex with him, a lot more now than she had when they’d first wed.
She hadn’t known Paul as well before, so it was sex in general she was
interested in. Now, however, she really liked him. And she really liked the
idea of sex with him.
    Seeing
him like this made her body like the idea of sex with him.
    But
they’d taken sex off the table until her eighteenth birthday. It had been hard
enough to bring the topic up the first time and mortifying when he'd rejected
her, so there was no use to even think about it again until she turned
eighteen. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to work up the courage even then.
    “I
thought you’d already got a bottle of water before bed,” Paul said with a
frown.
    She
rolled her eyes, her unexpected physical response to him making her feel
flustered and a little irritable. “I finished that one