CHAPTER FIVE
Jagger
I was super fucking drunk.
Normally, I had a pretty decent tolerance for alcohol.
I was a big guy and could handle my liquor, but considering the very little food I ate today was now at the bottom of Puget Sound, meant I was a lightweight tonight, and that beer and wine were hitting me hard.
I was also fucking exhausted, which didn’t help.
Not to mention a little embarrassed that my porn from last night’s wank session was still up on my computer and Raina saw it.
None of that excused my current position though. On my belly, between her legs, staring up at her from her favorite porn position. And my cock was hard.
Fuck my life.
She gaped down at me, her pupils dilating, nostrils flaring as I gave her a big, playful smile, hoping it would disarm her—and ease the mounting awkwardness.
“What are you doing?” she asked, not sure what do to with her hands and sort of flailing them about. She kept attempting to push on my head, but before she’d touch me, she’d lift her hands again and flail them some more.
“Just asking if this is the position you were referring to.” I inched up a little further, spied her phone on the nightstand, and reached for it. “Unlock it.” I handed it to her.
“What? No.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on. Don’t be such a …”
“Such a?”
“Tight ass,” I finished. “Just unlock it.”
Her growl was sexy and made my cock twitch beneath me. But she did as she was told, which also really fucking turned me on, and unlocked her phone with her thumbprint. “Now what?”
I snatched her phone from her, only taking a second to admire the wallpaper of her screen that was her cute kid, Marco, and her smiling in the middle of the grapevines. Then I brought up her camera app, put it into selfie-mode, and snapped a picture of myself.
“There,” I said, handing it back to her, but for some reason not moving.
Neither of us said anything for a long, hot moment.
Was she thinking what I was thinking? About what it might be like if we ditched these cutesy pajama bottoms and did this position for real?
I resisted the urge to press my nose to the “V” of her legs and inhale. Though, I was really tempted.
She stared at me, her eyes roaming my face with equal parts curiosity and …
arousal? The flush climbing up her throat would certainly make a man wonder.
I was probably as close to her as I’d ever been.
Without my glasses though, this was about the distance I needed to make out the features of her face: the flush under her freckles—growing darker by the second—the sparkle of her yellow-green catlike eyes, and the way the spokes of gold alternated with the spokes of emerald, radiating out from her pupil.
Her lips, and how she had to unconsciously be nibbling on the bottom one as she continued to study me, and the way the drying baby hair on her forehead and temples peeled away from the rest and curled delicately against her tanned skin.
I swallowed, suddenly realizing just how suggestive, how inappropriate, and how wrong this all was. Clearing my throat, I rolled away and, like nothing happened, grabbed my laptop and sat back up against the headboard.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” she exclaimed, turning to face me, her voice a little shrill, but in a cute way.
“Bean flick fodder for later?” I gave her a wink, then dragged my laptop back between us and went on the hunt for a movie.
She shook her head and set her phone back on the nightstand, and I definitely pretended not to notice that she didn’t delete it. “Just when I thought there might be hope for us …”
“Hope for us?”
Shut up, McEvoy. Just shut the fuck up.
I kept giving her my stupid, charming smile, because it usually worked on women—just not this woman.
This woman, I was used to riling up. I was used to making her glare, and frown, and plot my murder.
But I didn’t want to do that right now. At least not the way I normally did.
I’d rather rile her up in a different way.
Get her skin to flush a deeper pink than it already was.
Make her nostrils flare again, her eyes darken, and her tongue flick out and slide along her bottom lip, making it glisten.
“For a truce . At least while we’re stuck here in,” she waved her hand around to encompass the room, “this … place. This … shoebox of a honeymoon suite.” She inched further away from me.
“She said this was a queen, right?” Then she snorted.
“It sure fucking isn’t a queen. If this is a queen, then I’m a natural blonde. ”
The laugh that barked out of me made her jump and glare at me. “Sorry,” I murmured. “I don’t know why I thought that was as funny as my laugh made it seem.”
All she did was glare harder.
“What movie do you want to watch?” I asked, going to Disney. “ Frozen ?” I snickered at my own joke, which she obviously didn’t find funny. “ Ice Age ?” Grabbing the rosé from the nightstand, I took a long swig.
“How about the new Matt Damon movie?” she suggested. “He never sucks, and his films rarely do. I mean, Downsizing —which was just weird—still had really good acting. It just wasn’t a great movie.”
I went to Netflix instead and typed in “Matt Damon,” then clicked on his latest release.
“I actually agree with you. While I certainly appreciate the message that Downsizing was trying to convey, and the acting was good, I just feel like it missed the mark. Was it trying to be a comedy? A drama? It just couldn’t pick a genre and follow through in a satisfying way. ”
Her head bobbed in agreement, and then she reached over and turned off the light on her nightstand, pitching us into the dark—aside from the light of my laptop.
We finished our booze, but didn’t opt for more, and while my belly rumbled with hunger, I was done with the nuts.
Too salty. I’d just have to have a big breakfast in the morning.
We watched the movie in silence. I’d subtly glance over at her periodically, then feel her subtly glance over at me.
Never did we glance at each other at the same time.
It happened so often though, it was beginning to feel like a dance.
Her lips would move in that way they do when she’s trying to stay mad, or serious, and not smile.
I found myself glancing at her more, just to make her mouth do it more.
Eventually, my bladder got impatient, and I got up to go to the bathroom. While in there, I brushed my teeth and poured us each a glass of water.
She glanced at me as I made my way back to the bed, stopping to set her water on the nightstand. “We should both drink some water, otherwise we’ll wake up dead tomorrow.”
Her throat moved on a tight swallow as she squeaked out a surprised little, “Thank you.” Then took a sip.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” I said, sliding back onto the bed on my side, but not looking at her. “I’ll use fifty or so of those thousand pillows over there, and some of the spare blankets in the closet. I’ll be fine.”
I wouldn’t be fine, but I’d survive. My back would suffer for sure, but that was what Wolfe Unger, the magician chiropractor on San Camanez, was for. He’d crack-a-lack me back into working order in no time. And if I brought him a case of beer, he’d squeeze me in even if he was full for the day.
“Thank you,” she whispered, still staring at the screen.
All I did was nod. Nod, and resume my frequent sideways glances at her, along with the movie, until my eyelids grew too heavy to keep up, and I drifted off to sleep.
So much for sleeping on the floor.
The next morning was unkind in every sense of the word. Not only did it come too soon, but it greeted me with the mother of all hangovers. I hadn’t been in this rough of shape in a long time.
I also woke up on the bed with a glaring and extremely tired-looking Raina staring at me. “I thought you were going to sleep on the floor,” she said, way too fucking loud for my brain.
I winced. “I fell asleep by accident. I’m sorry.”
Groaning, she rolled over onto her back and pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. “Are you dead?”
“Yes.”
“Me too.”
I grunted in acknowledgment.
“Breakfast is served between seven-thirty and nine-thirty. What time is it?”
“You have a phone too,” I said, reaching for my phone from the nightstand anyway.
“Oh, fuck.” I meant to spring out of bed like a limber baby gazelle, but it was more of a roll—like a walrus coming out of anesthesia after getting his wisdom tusks removed—and landed on my face on the floor. “It’s nine-fifteen.”
“Seriously?” She had a modicum more pep in her step than I did as she slung her body off the bed and toward the door. “Are you coming?”
“Aren’t you going to get dressed first?”
Glancing down her body, she then gave me a face. “Why? I’m not naked. I don’t care who sees me in my pajamas.”
Nodding, I used the bed to help haul myself up and joined her. “Good point.”
With concrete in every one of my steps, I followed her out of the door and down the hallway with its wainscoted walls, and dark-blue and gold houndstooth wallpaper, then the stairs, where voices and the clink and clatter of utensils sounded more like church bells in my brain.
But once the aroma of fresh coffee and bacon floated up my nostrils, I was no longer considering burning the entire house to the ground.
“Good morning,” Lenora greeted us, coming out of the kitchen through the white swinging door with the diamond-shaped window in the center. She carried a tray heaped with flaky pastries. “I’m pleased to see you’re both still alive.”