Chapter 15 Wes
FIFTEEN
WES
Tell me you’ve got something sweet for me.
My words hung between us, thick as steam off the pot and just as hard to pretend away. I’d be a liar if I said they had been completely innocent.
Clara blinked once, slow, like her brain had to buffer before it could decide what to do with that sentence.
Her fork hovered over her plate, the prongs catching the warm overhead light.
A beat passed where the only sounds were the heater ticking and the faint hush of snow sliding down the window outside.
My throat tightened.
Oh god, did I lick my lip? What the fuck.
Heat crawled up the back of my neck as my brain started scrambling for a version of that sentence I could live with. A joke. A roommate thing. A harmless comment about dessert.
My body didn’t seem interested in harmless.
Clara stared up at me in an oversize sweater that swallowed her shoulders and made her look smaller than she was, sleeves shoved up like she’d been cooking with both hands and zero hesitation.
Her legs were tucked under the chair, the denim just tight enough to show off the curve of her ass, and the sight of them did something stupid to my gut.
Her hair fell loose around her face, softened from the heat of the kitchen, a few strands curling near her jaw.
She looked . . . pretty. Too pretty for my table. Too alive for the man I’d been lately. They were details I had no business cataloging.
The curve where the sweater dipped at her collarbone.
The way her fingers worried the edge of her napkin like she needed something to do with her hands.
The steady rise and fall of her chest when she breathed.
I hated that I noticed any of it. I hated that the noticing came first, and the self-control had to sprint to catch up after, but for the briefest moment, I’d felt like me again. Somewhere our conversation reminded me of the guy I used to be—the one who liked to flirt and was damn good at it.
Clara’s gaze flicked down, one quick dart to my hand on her plate, then back up to my face.
Her cheeks colored just slightly, the kind of flush that made my pulse jump in a way I hadn’t felt in months.
Her expression shifted—shock fading into something more careful, more assessing, like she was deciding whether to pretend she hadn’t heard the double meaning or call me on it.
My eyes had stayed on her mouth for half a second too long.
My brain had supplied an image of her lips parting—again—only this time not to take a bite of spaghetti.
The thought hit fast and hot, a flicker of lust that made no sense in my chest, because I wasn’t a man who got to want things right now.
Wanting was for people who had their shit together.
Wanting was for men who didn’t sleep on couches and flinch at the sound of footsteps in their own hallway.
My stomach tightened as I turned.
Allowing her in my house had been a mistake.
Wanting her at my table felt like something else entirely.
Clara cleared her throat, the sound small and careful. “You’re . . .” She started, stopped, then tried again like she was choosing her tone on purpose. “You’re really doing the dishes?”
The question was simple, but the way she asked it wasn’t. There was something tentative under it, as if she didn’t trust me not to snap if she moved the wrong way.
My jaw clenched as I barely glanced over my shoulder. I forced my eyes to stay on her face and not dip, not betray me, not do the thing they kept trying to do—trace the line of her legs, the softness of that sweater, the way she looked too damn good in my kitchen.
“I said the cook doesn’t do dishes,” I replied, but the words came out too clipped, too defensive, like I was arguing with someone who hadn’t attacked me. “I meant it, Duchess.”
Her eyes went wide. “Duchess?”
I smirked, feeling the glimmers of the old me poking through again. “Well, you’re too hardheaded and wild to be princess.”
Clara’s mouth twitched into a half smile. She lifted her shoulder. “Okay.”
My pulse stuttered as I busied my hands with the dishes.
Her eyes held mine for a second longer than necessary, then glanced toward the freezer like she needed an escape route. “If you’re looking for something sweet . . .” Clara licked her lips, and my dick twitched. “We might have ice cream.”
What the hell was happening?
It had been ages since I’d flirted with a woman, let alone had one flirt back. Is that what we were doing here?
I swallowed, plate still in my hand, and forced a nod. “Yeah?”
She slid her chair back and stood, sweater falling into place over her hips, the hem skimming her thighs in a way that made my attention snag and my patience with my own body evaporate.
She moved with that unthinking confidence of someone who didn’t have to plan every step, every pivot, every reach.
She gathered the rest of the dishes as if it were nothing—just a normal night, in a normal kitchen, and a normal man sharing a meal with her.
I gestured toward the glasses in her hand. “I’ll do those too.”
Clara glanced up, a beat of surprise passing over her face before she masked it. “Oh, I know. You already made the rule.” Her eyes flashed with playful amusement.
I shook my head.
New rule: Stop imagining your friend’s sister naked, you fuckwad.
I focused on rinsing the dishes and stacking them into the dishwasher, keeping my movements careful, my expression neutral, my mind locked on the mechanics of the task.
Clara joined me at the sink anyway, shoulder to shoulder, close enough that the warmth of her bled through the air between us.
The faucet roared to life, hot water steaming up.
Plates clinked softly, a domestic sound that hadn’t been heard in my house in a long time.
The scent of her perfume cut through the lingering garlic and meat sauce.
Winter light pressed against the windows, dim and slate-colored, snow drifting past the pines like the world was being erased one flake at a time.
Clara slid a dish under the stream and hummed under her breath—quiet, absent, like she couldn’t help it—before passing it to me to stack in the dishwasher.
I grabbed a towel from the drawer, snapping it once like that could shake the tension off my skin. “I’ve got it,” I muttered.
Her eyes cut to me. “I’m not trying to steal your job, Wes.”
The way she said my name—flat, matter of fact, no pity tucked inside it—hit harder than it should have. Clara Darling had a mouth that knew how to turn words into trouble. Tonight, I was trying to keep them from doing exactly that.
Her eyebrows rose as she handed me a freshly rinsed glass.
Our hands grazed.
It wasn’t even a full touch, just skin against skin—my fingers brushing the side of hers for the smallest fraction of a second—but my entire body reacted like she’d pressed her palm to my chest. Heat climbed, fast and sharp. My stomach tightened. Somewhere lower, something hungry shifted.
Clara’s breath caught, quiet and unmistakable, and her fingers lingered that half heartbeat too long before she pulled back. Her gaze flicked to my face, then away, quick as a blink. A flush rose along her cheeks. The focus she suddenly found in the dish she was rinsing did not help.
The air in the kitchen thickened until it felt hard to breathe.
My brain reached for the easiest place to put the blame.
Proximity. That was all this was. A normal reaction to a beautiful woman in my space.
My body disagreed, loud and immediate.
It remembered things it had no business remembering. The weight of a woman straddling my lap and moaning when I stretched her open. The slide of bare skin under my hands. The way my mouth could make her forget she was anything but alive.
I’d been a damn good lover, and I missed the way a woman could use my body while I used hers. I missed the casual fun of a good fuck. Nothing about Clara Darling could ever be casual. She was the kind of woman you changed your plans for.
Now my body was nothing but a problem I carried around—something to manage, compensate for, apologize for without ever saying the words.
Clara’s fingers moved with quick efficiency, bringing a pan to the sink and making the kitchen look like it belonged to someone who lived there instead of someone who survived there. Her shoulder bumped mine lightly as she reached past me for another plate. The contact was accidental and small.
It still hit me like a shove.
I shifted my stance, cursing under my breath as phantom pain flared, my nerves firing in a place that no longer existed. My jaw clenched. My breath went shallow.
Clara’s head turned, a question rising in her eyes.
I stiffened before she could ask it. “I’m fine,” I said sharply, like it was an answer to something. Like it would stop her from seeing what she saw.
Clara blinked, then dipped her chin. “Okay.”
She didn’t press. She didn’t hover. She didn’t offer help I hadn’t asked for.
The restraint should have been a relief, but it wasn’t. It made me want to reach for her and yank her into me and prove I was more than this broken shell of a man.
My hand tightened around the towel until my knuckles went white.
She stepped to the side to put the clean pan away, and I needed to get past her to the cabinet. The kitchen narrowed in that moment—tight space, two bodies, nowhere to look but at her.
My brain said, Go around.
My body said, Move her.
My hand landed at her lower back, a brief, instinctive press meant to guide her out of my way.
The contact was light. Nothing. The kind of touch a man used without thinking.
My skin registered it like a brand.
Clara’s spine straightened under my palm. Her muscles there went taut, like she’d been braced for impact and wasn’t sure whether to lean into it or run.
My hand lifted immediately, yanked back like I’d burned myself.
Clara turned her head slightly, eyes wide for a beat before her lashes lowered. She swallowed. Her voice came out careful when she spoke.