Chapter 437: Only The Middle
Chenghai’s eyes dropped to my hand.
I took the towel away and started drying his chest instead. There was no point wasting clean fabric on the rest of him while he still stood in the water, but I could at least make sure the important parts were dry.
Chenghai let me drag the towel over his shoulders and down his chest. His stomach tightened when I followed the lines of muscle toward his waistband.
I looked up at him.
His hand settled against the back of my neck.
I stopped the towel just above his pants. "You dropped me into freezing water," I reminded him again. Because I was not in a forgiving mood.
"I’m well aware," he replied, smirking at me. "I was there."
"And yet, you still don’t sound sorry," I hissed back.
"Probably because I’m not."
That should have annoyed me more than it did.
I tossed the towel aside and caught the waistband of his pants instead. Chenghai’s fingers tightened against my neck, but he didn’t stop me when I pulled him closer.
His mouth covered mine.
The kiss was harder this time. He stepped between my knees again and bent me back slightly over the rock while his hand moved down my spine. My wet clothes pressed against both of us, cold in some places and hot everywhere he touched.
His fingers slipped beneath the back of my shorts.
I pressed closer.
Chenghai kissed along my jaw, then down the side of my neck. His teeth caught lightly against my skin before his tongue moved over the same spot.
My hands slid over his wet shoulders.
He lifted his head when my fingers reached the scar across his ribs.
For a second, I thought he might finally tell me how he got it.
Instead, he took my hand and pressed my palm flat against the center of his chest. His heartbeat was harder than his face made it look.
I liked knowing that.
I moved my hand even lower.
Chenghai caught my wrist before I reached the top of his pants. He held it there while looking down at me.
I expected a question, but he didn’t ask me anything.
Instead, he only leaned in and kissed me again, slower now, before pulling me away from the edge of the rock.
Chenghai grabbed the bag from the bank, took out a clean shirt, and pulled it over my wet tank top. The dark fabric fell almost to my knees.
I stared down at it. "This isn’t clean anymore."
"It’s cleaner than what you were wearing."
"That isn’t the same thing."
He wrapped a towel around my shoulders and started drying my hair before I could complain more. His hands were rough, but he used them carefully, rubbing the wet strands until water stopped dripping down my back.
I sat there while he worked.
It should have felt strange to let someone else wash mud off my face, dry my hair, and dress me in his shirt. Instead, I leaned against his stomach and watched the creek move around the stones.
Chenghai finished with my hair, then crouched to dry my legs and feet.
When he reached for the sandals, I looked toward the field. "Are we going home?"
"No."
He slipped one sandal onto my foot, then the other.
I watched him pack the wet clothes into a separate bag. "What else did you plan?"
Chenghai stood and lifted me from the rock before I could get down by myself.
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and let him carry me up the bank.
The old farmhouse waited beyond the tall grass, its broken roof glowing beneath the late afternoon sun. From this side, I could see that someone had cleared the wide stone porch and covered part of it with blankets.
There was another cooler beside the wall.
Chenghai had brought more food.
Of course he had.
He started toward the farmhouse with me in his arms.
Chenghai carried me through the tall grass without slowing, even when the ground became uneven near the farmhouse. The porch looked cleaner the closer we got. Someone had swept away the broken glass, dragged the rotten boards to one side, and covered the safest section with two thick blankets and several cushions from the SUV.
I looked at him. "You did all this before breakfast?"
"Most of it," he replied with a nonchalant shrug.
That meant he had left the house while I was still asleep, driven out here, checked the farmhouse, cleared the porch, built a mud track, moved three vehicles into the field, stocked food in at least two places, and then gone home like none of that was worth mentioning.
Zhenlan had made it rain for me.
Chenghai had apparently built an entire dirty little playground.
I wasn’t sure which one was more ridiculous.
He stepped onto the porch and lowered me onto the blankets. The wood beneath them held steady, although the far end sagged enough that I stayed exactly where he put me. Chenghai crouched to check the boards near my feet before setting the cooler within reach.
"You checked for zombies?" I asked.
"Yes."
"People?"
"We know that there is only one."
I stared at him.
"The man from earlier."
"That didn’t count. He found us."
Chenghai opened the cooler and handed me a cold bottle of peach tea. "The cellar is empty. The upstairs isn’t safe, and the back room smells bad enough that I didn’t look inside twice."
That sounded like a good reason to stay on the porch.
I twisted the cap off the tea and drank while he spread another towel over the railing to dry. His wet pants clung to his legs, and mud still marked one side of his neck where I had missed it.
I reached out and rubbed the spot with my thumb.
Chenghai caught my hand, kissed the inside of my wrist, then kept holding it while he sat beside me. His shoulder pressed against mine, warm despite the creek water still drying on his skin.
The field stretched in front of us, torn up from the tires and shining beneath the late sun. From here, the track looked even worse.
I smiled into my drink.
Chenghai noticed, but he didn’t ask what I was thinking. He only pulled my legs across his lap and began rubbing the cold from my feet with both hands.
The cooler was full, the porch was soft, and the farmhouse wasn’t trying to kill us.
Apparently, getting clean had only been the middle of the date.