Page 27 of Lifeline

Then again, he hadn’t bent over and drawn my attention to it before. I had been busy trying to keep from looking him over, so of course I stared, realizing his ass was still as nice as it had been, just a lot more obvious.

Okay, so it wasn’t just lingering awkwardness from being exes; there was some lingering…or maybe not so lingering, attraction there. His body was still his body, and it was as attractive to me as ever, except now it was a body he had put work into and on top of the attraction I clearly had, there was a new appreciation for the work he’d put in.

When he stood up, I snapped back around, and I almost sighed when I heard his hesitant, “You good?”

“Marvelous,” I said dryly. “You?”

“Fine,” he said and cleared his throat. “Look, we’re both adults. We don’t have to make this weird. Let’s just…both take a shower and call it a day, alright? I’ll face the wall.”

It felt patronizing, but I bit back the annoyance as I yanked at my shirt. “Fine, whatever. You’re right, we’re adults.”

I listened to his footsteps as he walked into the shower room and turned on one of the showerheads. He was the one who’d had intimacy issues in our relationship. He might as well not have had a sex drive since he could rarely follow through on the moments he was attracted to me. Maybe time apart had brought some spark back, but I doubted it was going to go any further than that.

Which meant I only had to worry about myself, and self-control had never been a problem for me, so I marched into the shower to flip on my own showerhead and took a moment to soak under the warm spray. I heard a bottle open and a clean but neutral smell hit the air. I looked over to see him shampooing his hair with deep strokes of his fingers. My gaze lingered, safe from being caught as he kept his eyes closed.

It was a stupid, idiotic thing to do. I had no shame in checking out another guy if the chance presented itself, just so long as I wasn’t a creep about it. Except he wasn’t just a guy; he was Aidan. The fact that he was my ex-boyfriend was a big reason to behave myself because feeding the fire of attraction I had for him was the first step on a long path to disaster. Our relationship had been…well, it hadn’t been the worst I’d had, but I couldn’t call it amazing either. We both kept too much from other, withheld certain problems and thoughts, and for all his failings, I had been the one to end things in a way that was unforgivable for most people, including myself.

Well, and again, my physical attraction would go unreciprocated anyway.

Irritated that I needed to remind myself more than once, I went back to focusing on showering. I was still distracted by the sounds from his end of the room, but I kept my eyes and most of my attention on what I was supposed to be doing. Which proved easier with each second that I behaved myself, and I only broke focus when I heard the water stop.

I glanced over and caught Aidan as he walked out of the shower. I’d expected him to be gone by the time I looked, considering how long it had taken me to realize he’d turned his shower off. Except he hadn’t left right away, and I tensed in surprise to see he had lingered in the doorway. He flinched guiltily and darted out before I could say anything.

He hadn’t been fast enough for me to miss the fact that I hadn’t been the only one looking. It wasn’t that he’d been staring that gave it away, because anyone could be caught looking at someone seeming suspicious.

No, the evidence that he had done more than glance was the fact that I caught sight of his dick before he darted out. He had been almost completely hard, and I had watched it bounce as he’d made his hasty escape. The mere thought was enough to make my dick stir to life, and I sighed softly, sticking my head back under the water and tempting myself by cranking the hot water all the way off.

I needed to remind myself that it wasn’t just a bad idea; it was a pointless one.

And that was all I needed to know…and what I was going to keep telling myself.

5

AIDAN

There were few things in life as frustrating as writer’s block. I mean, I suppose there were several things worse, but I couldn’t think of anything as mind-numbingly irritating.

The thing was, most people seemed to think writer’s block was just sitting there staring at a screen, your mind completely blank. That was one version, the one I could deal with. At least then I knew nothing was going to come out, so it was better to spend my time elsewhere. The mind blank would fix itself at some point so long as I busied myself with anything other than focusing on writing.

The real bitch was when I sat in front of the screen and could feel the humming and buzzing in my brain that indicated there was something to be written. Except instead of words and sentences, I was met with…nothing. Oh, the word chatter was there, practically begging to be plucked from my brain and set down on the page, but instead of behaving, it was like it wanted to play hard to get.

It didn’t help that I was distracted by tonight’s revelation.

“Keep staring and you’re going to go cross-eyed,” I heard Reno say, and I looked up to find both brothers in the rec room where I’d been sitting alone for twenty minutes.

“Ugh,” I muttered, rubbing my face as if that would somehow loosen whatever was stuck in my head. “I haven’t written anything in over a week and now every time I look at the screen, I keep seeing Colin and Xander wrapped around each other like two mating eels.”

Reno scrunched his face. “Thanks for that imagery.”

I didn't know what he wanted me to say. Tonight should have been an opportunity for everyone on the team to surprise Xander with a party for his birthday. I personally thought Xander wasn’t the kind of person to enjoy surprises, not even good ones. I'd kept that to myself, however, feeling that the rest of the team was a better judge.

Now I wished I had at least said something, because it was the rest of us who ended up with the surprise as we lay in wait for Xander and Colin to show up. At the very least, some of us should have trusted that deep-down feeling that there was something more going on between Colin and Xander than a begrudging professional respect.

At least then we wouldn't have been waiting in his private cabin along with his ex-wife of all people just to get a front-row seat to the entire dramatic scene. I certainly wasn't alone in being completely floored by the sight of Xander and Colin wrapped around one another as they entered the cabin, hands in places I didn't want to remember clearly, and lips locked on one another's like it was their only source of air. To say that Xander's ex-wife had been just as taken aback as the rest of us was underselling to an almost criminal degree.

I had no idea what happened after her explosive reaction; Cait wanting to beat the woman's ass right there and then, and the rest of us filing out. I would bet I wasn't the only one trying to drink enough to dull the edges of the memory.

“Never have I been so glad not to know what mating eels look like,” Mika said and his eyes darted to the table in front of me where a small bottle of liquor sat next to the pop I had and then the glass, half drunk, in front of me. “Trying to drink away the image?”