Isn't It Bromantic (Bromance Book Club #4) by Lyssa Kay Adams

            “That bad, huh?” His voice had gone from annoyed to grumpy again.

            “Huh?”

            “You look like you’d rather die than catch a glimpse.”

            “You didn’t want me to look.”

            “That’s not what I said.” He muttered it under his breath.

            “So you want me to look?”

            “I want you to stop acting like you’ll turn to stone if you do.”

            “Make up your mind, Vlad. Do you want me to look or not?”

            “I want you to open your damn eyes before you fall down.”

            She obeyed and found herself staring intently at a popping vein along his temple. “I told you this was a bad idea,” he said.

            “Just get in the tub.”

            “I need your hand again.”

            “Right. Okay.” She needed to get her shit together. She was acting like a teenage girl with her first crush. Which he was, of course. Her first crush. Her forever crush.

            He held on tightly as he turned around and lowered his good leg into the water. Then he let go of her hand so he could instead grip both sides of the tub. With ease, he lowered his body fully, relying on the strength of his thick, massive thighs to take all the weight off his lower leg.

            “You’re looking.”

            Flames burst from her cheeks. Elena turned around so abruptly that she stumbled. “No, I’m not.”

            “I cannot help that I have a hairy chest.”

            That’s what he thought she was staring at? His chest hair? And anyway, why would it be bad to stare at the thick blanket of dark hair that covered his sculpted pecs and dipped enticingly toward his defined abs?

            She squeaked out a response. “There’s nothing wrong with your hairy chest.”

            “Colton says I should wax.”

            “Colton is a stupid American.”

            He looked up with an apologetic grimace. “I’m sorry you have to do this.”

            “Shut up and let me wash your hair.”

            His grimace lifted into something resembling a smile. “You’re bossy.”

            “And you’re stubborn.”

            “I could have just called Colton.”

            “So he can insult your chest hair again? I don’t think so.”

            His smile became a chuckle as he relaxed. Elena squeezed a dollop of shampoo into her hands, rubbed them together, and then slowly massaged the liquid into his wet hair. Suds formed between her fingers, turning his thick, dark locks into foamy spikes. She spread her fingers wide to slowly scrub along his temples and then down behind his ears. The smooth outline of his head took shape in her imagination, and the need for exploration overtook all common sense. Her fingers dipped lower to the cords of his neck, where tiny, wispy hairs were already growing back from his last haircut. Such a simple thing. Washing someone’s hair. But there was nothing simple about the layers of complex emotion competing inside her as he turned himself over to her. Touching him like this was at once intimate and innocent. Seductive and sweet. Dangerous and natural.

            He sucked in a breath, and she immediately paused. “Am I hurting you?” Her voice sounded like sandpaper over glass.

            “No,” came his gruff response. “I would let you do this all day.”

            She suddenly wanted to. She splayed her fingers again and scraped them up into his hair, massaging his scalp inch by inch like he’d done for her last night. His head moved with her, toward her touch. And when he tilted his head all the way back, she saw that his eyes were closed.

            Her own eyes betrayed her, and they drifted downward to the place she swore she wouldn’t look, along a dark trail of hair down the center of his abs that pointed farther south to a thicker patch.

            What would it be like with him? It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to imagine it, but now her body insisted on painting every vivid pornographic picture in her mind. To feel those powerful hips move against hers. To press her fleshy breasts against that coarse, dark hair, that hard, granite chest.