Chapter 18
Oh no.Had the door automatically locked behind her? Or was he home early?
Which would be worse?
Alyssa peered through the door and saw nothing different—her painting equipment was still lying around, drop cloths on the floor and draped over the one sad overstuffed chair. She couldn’t see into the bedrooms or bathroom, but there was no suitcase visible. Could a man really move through the world and leave so few traces?
No, he couldn’t. His keys were on the kitchen counter. Crap.
Alyssa would have to knock and knock now, because it was late, and he would be tired from traveling. Or call him, and then explain she was standing two feet away. She didn’t want to catch him in his pajamas. What if he didn’t wear any? Maybe she should wait.…
She hooked her bag over her shoulder, gathered the drop cloth, and took a deep breath. And then Nick walked out of the bathroom, a white towel around his waist, his hair damp. There was a rivulet running down the middle of his chest, one drop careening through the valley in his chest muscles. Did he just walk around like this, half naked, with his balcony blinds open? And if so, where could she park to watch?
She rapped on the glass and he turned, his eyes popping wide, and then a broad grin spread over his face. He walked over. “Hi.”
“You seem to have locked the door,” Alyssa said through the glass.
“You seem to have been lurking on my balcony. Lurker.”
“May I come in?”
He tilted his head and considered this, one hand still gripping the towel at his waist. He tortured her another moment, then flicked the lever on the frame and slid the door open. Alyssa stepped through, carefully averting her eyes from the towel. It was a fairly big towel, which was disappointing. She’d have to replace it with smaller ones when she did his bathroom, in case she found that parking spot.
“Ah, thank you.” She sidled past him into the living room. “I seem to have misunderstood when you were getting back.” He shrugged and all sorts of good things happened with his naked chest and ripply arms. She needed to talk about something because otherwise she was going to drool. Although if he whipped off the towel to wipe it up, that would be a win. “Um, Stacey wanted to know if you’d be willing to have your place featured in an online ad. When it’s done.”
He blinked. “Is that your boss? The … unpleasant one?”
“That’s her.”
He shook his head. “Nope.” Her stomach twisted. “I don’t really like being recognized. I mean, I love the game, but I don’t want everybody in Detroit judging my coffeemaker.”
“May it rest in peace,” she said, not at all surprised by his answer. It wasn’t as if he wanted to show off his place the way Vanessa might have. “I’ll clear out and let you get to bed.”
But before she could take a step, he said, “You painted my living room green.”
She took a deep breath. “At the museum you stopped at landscapes—summer and spring ones. And you talked about the plants, about botanical shapes, about painting leaves in the foreground versus the background, about ink work in veins. You said you missed a courtyard garden at your old apartment building, where you could eat outside in dappled green light.”
Nick rubbed his forehead, blushing. “Jesus, I’m a chatterbox.”
She laughed. “We were there for three hours. But ‘dappled green light,’ Nick. It will be a summer meadow kind of space—a connection to nature.” She looked at him, worried. “Is that okay?”
“Will I get a cow? I think I’d enjoy a cow.”
He was standing a foot away from her, still gripping the towel. He smelled like some spicy man-body wash for his man body, and it was distracting, and damn him, he’d gone and woken up her girl parts—which had been asleep for so long she’d started calling them Rip Van Winkle. And now that they were awake, they wanted to stay awake. And claw that towel off. Did the man never lose his grip? Stupid athlete hands. Would it kill him to be less coordinated?
“No cow.” She sounded slightly breathless. Because of the paint fumes, clearly. The front of his towel shifted.
“I’m going to get dressed.” He went into the bedroom and shut the door. “So there’s a gallon of paint in here,” he called. “Were you going to paint it tonight?”
“I thought I’d do the first coat. But obviously I won’t now. It’s fine.”
“Is your boss pressuring you?” She hesitated. He popped out of his bedroom, shirtless, sockless, wearing a pair of sweatpants that accented his muscular butt. “Are you under time pressure?”
No. I’m under marketing campaign pressure. Also you have veins wrapped around your arms and these strange round muscles disappearing under your waistband, and as a professional decorator I would not change a thing. “Um …”
He went back in the bedroom and rummaged through a garbage bag. “Socks!” He sat on the mattress on the floor and pulled his socks on, one long smooth pull each, and she wondered what else his competent, strong fingers could do. Oh, Rip Van Winkle was not going back to sleep. “I’m going to run an errand. You go ahead and do whatever you want to,” he said.
She could feel herself flush and prayed he didn’t notice.
He walked into his shoes while pulling a baseball shirt over his head, grabbed his keys, and started out. “Anything you need?”
Oh god, yes.“I’m good.”
He nodded and left.
Alyssa walked into his bathroom and took one deep breath, then acknowledged to herself that she was a total perv, went in his bedroom, smelled his pillow, and considered turning herself in to the police. She wouldn’t have chosen to paint when he was going to be home, but didn’t think she should leave before he got back. Alyssa decided to cut in around the ceiling and baseboard of the far wall. It would give her a head start. He wasn’t likely to bump into the wet paint, and the cleanup would be fast when he got back with his takeout or giant box of condoms. Whatever he was picking up.
She set up the drop cloths and pried open the paint lid. The stir stick brought up a soft butter color, smooth and glossy. She was pleased with it and knew it would dry to just the shade she wanted.
She got around the top and bottom of the wall on three sides. She held the handle of the brush against her nose as she stared at the fourth wall, debating whether to pull the mattress out, when the lock scraped. Well, that solved that dilemma. Besides, he’d probably push it back into the paint.
“I could use a little help,” Nick called from the door, and she raced into the living room. He was juggling his keys and four bags, and she rushed forward to grab a bag, when she realized his big hands were holding them just fine. He set the bags down on the kitchen counter. “So I got some stuff.” He had a goofy expression on his face. His mouth was serious, but his eyes were up to something.
“Okay?”
“If you’re going to be working all night, we need party supplies.”
“We … what?”
“Beer. Ice cream.” He extracted items as he announced them and displayed them proudly before setting them on the counter. “Matching T-shirts.” They were orange, with jack-o-lantern faces on the front.
“Oh my god.”
“Classy, right? Yours might be too big. I had to guess. Oh, and a disco ball, obviously.” He pulled out a black base topped with a sphere imbedded with different colored lenses. “Let me set this bad boy up.” He plugged it into an outlet in the living room. Alyssa hadn’t put the outlet covers back on and had to stop herself from shouting not to electrocute himself. He played a very fast and unpredictable game at an elite level; he could probably handle an outlet. Nick flicked the switch, and the light inside the sphere snapped on. The ball began to rotate with a soft grinding noise, and bright circles of colored light splashed across the drying walls.
“Huh,” he said. “I think this would look better on white walls. Would you mind repainting?”
She gave him a mock glower and he laughed. “What’s in the other bag?”
“Oh, just things I needed. We were on the road for a few days. Guess you knew that.” Nick stuffed the bag in the refrigerator, then walked over and handed her a T-shirt. He pulled his shirt off, tugged the cheap grocery-store shirt on, and grinned. “Do I look like a pumpkin?” She tried to form a coherent sentence, or even a coherent thought, then gave in to laughter. “So a particularly handsome pumpkin, right? That’s what your laughter indicates?”
“Definitely. A very handsome pumpkin.” She took her shirt and pulled it on over the one she was already wearing. “You’re the best-looking of the gourds for sure.”
He hoisted himself onto the kitchen counter, popped open a chilled beer, and offered it to her. She pointed at the frosty ice cream containers beside him. “Ah. Peach or chocolate?” he asked.
“Okay, I want both.”
“Yeah?” He rummaged in his cupboard, scooped an enormous amount of ice cream into a bowl for her, and stuck a spoon in, down straight. “Energy to keep going all night,” he said.
Shut up, Rip Van Winkle.
“This is amazing, Nick. It’s like a slumber party starter kit.”
“I know how to braid hair,” he said.
She laughed. “You get big points for that, but bigger ones for the ice cream.”
“What’s your favorite flavor?”
“Peach.”
“Really?” She nodded and he threw his arms in the air and did a lap of the living room, bottle still in hand. This was definitely a happier—and goofier—Nick than she’d seen before.
“Hey, did you guys win today?”
“Oh, we slaughtered them. It was brutal.” He took a pull on his beer. “The Red Wheels have been rebuilding for a few years, but we’re almost rebuilt. We’re mostly putting up shutters at this point.”
“Sounds like it’s almost time for the decorator,” Alyssa said, licking the back of her spoon. Nick had bought the good brand.
“Could be,” he said, and something in his voice made her look up and flush. Rip Van Winkle was hot. What if she set off Nick’s smoke detector? I’m sorry, it was just my lonely lady bits responding to your sexy voice and those muscles below your waist that make a “V.” Can I touch those things before I see myself out?
“So you don’t mind if I paint the bedroom? I don’t want to keep you up.” She flushed.
“No, do what you want. If you’re having trouble with your boss, I want to help.”
So Alyssa went back to the bedroom, and Nick stood in the doorway in his ridiculous orange T-shirt. “Is it okay if I pull the bed away from the wall? But then you’d have to sleep with it that way because you couldn’t push it back.”
He responded by setting his bottle in the doorway, walking over and grabbing the end of the mattress with a wide grip, and sliding it into the middle of the room. Then he retrieved his beer and sprawled on the bed. He waved the bottle at her. “Carry on.”
Was he seriously going to lie on the bed watching while she painted? Because paint fumes were combustible, and she wasn’t sure she should be around them right then. What if her lady bits ignited the air and sent a fireball shooting through the building? People would be left homeless.
She cut in around the base of the wall that the bed had been pushed against, trying to angle her backside so it wasn’t in his face.
“You want any help?” he said.
“One brush,” she said, holding it up, then looked at him from her crouch by the baseboard. “You’d think an artist would have a brush lying around somewhere.”
She’d meant it lightheartedly, but he said, “I haven’t painted since the crash. I just haven’t wanted to.”
She winced in sympathy. “Do you have to paint in order to finish your degree? You said you’re almost done, right?”
“I think I’ve actually fulfilled the requirements for the art history major. I suppose I should check on that sometime.” He shrugged and rolled his neck. “But I have one more painting for the art degree, and I’m not doing it.”
She stood and pulled the ladder over, climbed it, and looked down. “Any reason?”
“I’m a lazy bastard.”
“Seems like a lazy guy wouldn’t have done the degree in the first place,” she said, keeping her eyes on the butter strip she was painting at the ceiling. He didn’t respond, and she let it go.
The walls went fast once she had the roller going. He was still lounging on the bed, socks stripped off, wearing his grocery-store-in-October T-shirt. The disco light was rotating in the living room, sending splashes of color through the door and across the far wall. “I guess it’s time to talk seriously,” he said. She looked over, roller in mid-glide, suddenly alert. “Michelangelo or Leonardo?”
“Leonardo!” She finished the stroke and dipped the roller back in the pan. “You?”
He snorted. “Michelangelo.”
She exhaled sharply. “Leonardo was so smart—the inventions, the anatomical sketches. His intellect had such range.”
“Yeah,” Nick said, rolling over to put his empty bottle on the floor. “Leonardo was smart, but at some point you have to admire Michelangelo’s physicality. Art is a visual medium—there’s a place for the unabashedly physical.”
She was done with the room. She set the roller down in the pan and picked a spot of rubbery yellow off her wrist. “I didn’t say I don’t appreciate … physicality.” Her voice was breathy.
“Yeah?” He stood up and moved toward her, standing between her and the door. “Do you need help?” He had an erection. He definitely did. The sweatpants were heavy jersey but they weren’t hiding that.
“No.” Her chest heaved as she sucked in air. The paint fumes had apparently made it hard to breathe. And made her lady parts tingle. They should put a warning on the side of the can. “I just need to clean the equipment. Can I use your bathroom?”
“Or you could just leave it there,” he said.
“And let the paint dry on it?” She heard the slight shrill note, but he was talking crazy.
“If you wanted to do something else. Totally your call. You could just leave it.”
Was he … saying … what she thought he was saying? “Are you thinking … Michelangelo?” She had just coined a euphemism and now she was going to art hell.
“Do you like Michelangelo?” He stepped closer to her, and she had to look up because of his height. He rubbed his thumb down the side of her arm, and she whimpered. He grinned, then closed the gap and kissed her. His lips were soft, but his stubble scraped her chin. He pulled back for a moment and looked into her eyes, close enough to make her feel cross-eyed, the warmth and scent of him, the breadth of his chest all she could think about. “Okay?”
She nodded and again pressed her lips against his. He gently caught her upper lip with his teeth, then brushed his fingertips over her cheek as he deepened the kiss. This was nothing like the kiss under the arch that Janet had arranged, or the tentative, gentle kiss a moment ago. It made her warm and achy between her legs.
Alyssa tilted her head sideways to get his neck, play-biting at his Adam’s apple and making him groan. He put his hand on the small of her back and pulled her in to him, then held her with a hand on each hip, pressing against her. “I don’t think orange is your color,” he whispered.
“No. Bad shirt choice,” she whispered, and he put his large hands under her T-shirt on either side of her waist, electrifying her skin, then skimmed them up, catching momentarily at the edge of her bra as he lifted the fabric over her head. While her hands were still raised, he stepped into her, his leg behind her, bending her backward and supporting her on one arm. His spread hand covered her back, and his mouth worked down her cleavage, into her bra, and she just had time to be thankful she’d worn the pink lace, before conscious thought cut out altogether. He held her suspended over the bed and pulled back to look at her, tracing his thumb down from her bra line to the top of her pants.
How was he this strong? He was holding her with one arm, and it made his bicep bulgy and oh god, all his bulges were so, so good. He tugged her yoga pants down, and his thumb skimmed over her underwear to just where she needed him. He rubbed a little circle and she moaned and let her head drop back, her hair splaying, and he held her in the air and toyed with her, then gently laid her on the bed.
He pulled his shirt off in a practiced motion and then went for her bra, fumbling for a second when he couldn’t find the hook, then realizing it had a front catch. “Tricky,” he whispered, unlatching it and letting the lace spread back from her breasts. “Damn,” he murmured, his voice husky. He knelt over her, shuddering with need, then pulled her pants the rest of the way down. “Michelangelo?” His voice was husky.
“Definitely Michelangelo,” she agreed. “Condom?”
His eyes flared wide. “I put them in the fridge!” She put her hand to her forehead and looked up at him, laughing. “Stay right there!” he said, waving a hand vaguely over her and the bed. He ran to the doorway, and then looked back and made an animal growl and flashed his eyes at her. She laughed again. He was back a moment later, still in his sweatpants, ripping the packaging off and lying down on the mattress beside her.
“So this is very cold,” he said, setting it aside. “We’ll need to find something else to do while it warms up.”
“Oh.” Her voice was breathless.
He moved over her, holding himself up with one arm while he settled his mouth on her breast, licking her nipple and then sucking it. The heat and need built between her legs. He skimmed his other hand lightly across her stomach, over her thigh, and then settled it between her legs, rubbing gently while his lips explored her other breast, then climbed up to take her neck in his mouth. His scruff scraped her but his lips were gentle, and his fingers, there … She moaned and tilted her hips. He pressed down with his tongue and she spasmed, rocking into him, calling out his name—twice. He continued to lick in gentle circles until the aftershocks subsided. She ran her fingers lightly over his hair, and he looked up at her and smiled.
“Good?” he said.
“Unbelievable.” She hadn’t been with anyone for two years—not since dating Travis-Whom-She’d-Assumed-Was-Single. She felt a surge of affection for this man and laid her hand over his fingers, splayed across her belly.
He lifted himself higher, and she took advantage of the extra room to roll her legs up and put her feet on his waist, then push down, shoving at his pants. He sprang free, his cock bouncing off her, and then he helped, using one foot to push his sweatpants off a leg. He switched the arm supporting him and slid his free hand under her bottom, lifting her, and tugged her underwear off. His eyes swept over her and she felt shy, but he moaned and pushed his hair back with his free hand. She’d never been with a man who could hold himself up so long, so easily—who could do a one-handed pushup without thinking about it.
Then they were a tangle of legs, wriggling out of the last pieces of clothing till they were both fully nude. She lay beside this man with the body of a god, then lost the shyness, reached down, and gripped him. He shut his eyes and moaned.
“Is it warmed up yet?” she whispered. If it wasn’t, she was going to ignite those paint fumes, and her obituary would be scandalous but entertaining.
He grunted an assent before he touched the condom, and when he grabbed it, his eyes flared—not warm. He rubbed it sharply against his hip. Lucky condom, pressing against his warm spicy skin. She took it from him and looked him in the eye as she breathed hot air onto it. Then she pushed it down over the tip of him and unrolled it, feather strokes around his shaft until he was covered.
He positioned himself over her, his expression urgent, then kissed between her breasts, his breathing ragged as he worked up to her neck. She moaned and tilted toward him, and he murmured her name. He needed to hurry or she was going to get there again, without him. He nibbled up to the point of her chin, then settled on her lips, gnawing, and looked in her eyes as he moved his heavy body with authority and shoved into her.
Her eyelids drooped and she dug her fingers into his shoulders. She ran her hands across his back, along his arms, over his neck, keeping her hips moving in rhythm with his. She pulled her fingers through his hair. Oh god. She could fall for this guy. Really, really fall. He cupped her breast and caught her nipple between those strong fingers, pulling slightly. The heat built in her core until she couldn’t stand it, could think of nothing but the release coming. She looked down, saw his tight abs arching over her as he thrust, the hardness of his cock sliding into her, and she was there. Her eyes rolled up as she spasmed, grabbing the sheet on both sides. A second later he was there with her, shuddering inside her, their bodies melting into each other’s.
When they were coming down from the peak, he rolled his hips, swirling his cock inside her once more—she spasmed again and they both moaned. And then he kissed the side of her neck and rolled off her, panting slightly.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said. “I haven’t done that in a while. I meant to suggest you wear a helmet.”
She blinked at him and then laughed. “You thought you’d shoot me across the room?”
He grinned sleepily. “It was a concern. You’d have been mad if the paint got messed up, right?”
“Oh, definitely.” She paused and then said, “It’s been a while for me too.”
“Yeah?” He rolled on his side and looked at her, his fist under his chin. “How is that possible?”
“I give off skank vibes?” She cocked an eyebrow at him.
He laughed. “No. You’re gorgeous. And creative. And interesting.” He reached out to stroke her breast gently. “And these are pretty spectacular.”
This guy.How could he be in her life? “The girls are pretty fond of you too,” she said, and he laughed. She allowed her eyes one sweep of his body because wow. Her compliments to the decorator. She shook her head at the turn this evening had taken. She was having a conversation with Nick Sorensen. In his bedroom. Stark naked.
And then came the part where she had to redress with him watching her, and gather her things. He saw her off at the door, wearing only boxers himself. He put his arm around her lower back, his palm on her hip, pulled her in, and kissed her sweetly. As he pulled away he leaned forward again and kissed the tip of her nose with a little smacking sound. He grinned. “I’ve been wanting to do that.” She laughed. “You want me to walk you to your car?” he asked.
“In boxers?” she said. “You’d scandalize the neighbors.”
He grinned. “It would only add to my legend. Okay, there is no legend, but I could start one.”
She shook her head, kissed her fingertips, and touched them to his cheek. Then she stepped into the hall, flushed and warm and smelling him on her skin. He watched from his doorway until she reached the stairs, and when she looked back from the street, he was still watching through his living room window. She waved from the car, then sat for a moment as he stepped away from his window, and all that was left to see was his apartment building.
Once he was out of sight, her stomach fell with guilt. She had messed up the contract, and he was going to have his place splashed all over the internet, against his will, and she had known that and slept with him anyway.
She was a horrible person.