It’s not a good look, I can assure you.
“You did good for your first time,” Liam says, slapping me roughly on the shoulder and jarring me once more. “Wouldn’t have guessed you were a virgin.”
I flick my hands toward the ground, and mud slaps onto it.
Absolutely filthy. It’s horrifying the state I’m in. I’ve never in my life been allowed to appear this way.
If my father could see me now, he’d skin me alive.
Caleb doesn’t seem to mind though, because he leans over and pulls me into him, my mud-smeared side smashing into his.
I try to glower at him, but it’s hard to be angry when he looks so hot with a bit of dirt smeared across his cheek and his ball cap sitting sideways on his head.
It’s very unfair of him.
“Laugh all you want,” I grumble.
“I will,” he says as he reaches over and plucks at my muddy shirt. It squelches as it’s pulled from my skin like a suction cup peeling off a windowpane. “But let me tell you a secret. You look good messy,” he says softly, his thumb brushing against a smear of mud lingering on my cheek.
I lean into him a moment and then slap his hand away.
I won’t let him sweet-talk me right now. I want to get out of this muddy outfit and scrub myself clean.
“I am going to kill you in your sleep,” I murmur as I hold my sopping shirt away from my skin.
His smile is slightly crooked this time. “Nah, then who would cuddle with you, huh?”
“I have my pick,” I murmur, knowing that’s not true. I mean, it is. I could have my pick, but do I want anyone else at the moment?
No. No, I don’t.
I want the man who drove me through a muddy lake and delivered me back home looking like some kind of deranged mud sculpture.
“Let’s go shower,” Caleb says. “Bet you’re crawling out of your skin like this.”
“You have no idea,” I reply.
He leads me to the back of the house, and I hear Aunt Del shout that our clothes need to come off before coming inside. That’s completely reasonable. I get it. Our clothes are filthy.
I got the worst of it, though. And part of me wonders if that was on purpose.
Do they do this to every mudding-virgin who shows up at their house, or am I their first?
My eyes move toward Sem and Luke, who are peeling their clothes off, and I know I won’t be able to follow suit.
My body stays where it is, my eyes following their easy movements as they strip themselves nearly bare.
Panic starts to well up, sharp and sudden, threatening to spill over.
Oh fuck. Do they expect me to do this here, too? I can’t. There has to be another way.
“Come on, man,” Caleb says, peeling his shirt off. “Clothes off.”
I shake my head, feeling my heart hammering in my chest. Caleb’s never seen me without a shirt or pants. He doesn’t know. Doing so would mean I’d have to explain, would have to open up.
Now is not the time.
Not here.