Chapter Twenty-Four Madison
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Madison
It’s weird bringing James into the apartment even though I don’t live here anymore.
I’ve never brought a guy back here. Never once.
Mostly because I knew I’d have to apologize for a thousand things Bryce does, and that seemed too exhausting.
Plus, for hookups, I like to be able to leave whenever I want.
Anyway, this is not the kind of place you bring someone back to. The overflowing piles of laundry we have to step over by the door serve as proof. Mind you, the washer/dryer is nowhere near here. It’s actually in the bathroom closet. I guess I can thank Bryce for curing me of my messiness though.
And for letting us stay the night here for free.
“Super weird that she hasn’t been able to rent the place since you left,” James says in a dry, sarcastic tone while stepping over a loose, oily takeout bag. “How did you live here for two years?”
“I mostly stayed in my room.”
He points. “There’s a thong hanging on the fridge handle.”
“Do you want to know how long that’s been there?”
“Nope.”
As we pass the bathroom on the way to my old room, we hear the shower water running behind the closed door. I give it my signature “shave and a haircut” knock. “Just letting you know we’re here!” I yell through the door.
“Make yourself at home!” she yells back. “There are brownies on the counter. But they’ve got weed in them, so beware.”
I look over my shoulder at James. “Nice of her to warn me. Last time she did not.”
His eyes widen, and a grin splits across his face. “Did you call 911 thinking you were dying?”
“No, worse. I called Emily,” I say while opening the hall linen closet and finding it empty of towels. Not surprising since I was the only one who ever washed them.
James and I drip-drop our way down the hallway and into my room. My old room. My heart rate picks up as he steps inside. A sense of monumental change sweeps over me when I close the door behind us.
The space is clean, just as I left it. But with James in here, it’s completely different.
There might as well be a crackling fire in a fireplace for how cozy I feel watching him prowl around the room.
Every time I’d come in here—lonely and heart-bruised from the day—I’d hope that the apartment would finally feel like home.
Like somewhere restful and warm. It never did.
Not until now.
“Mind if I change?” he says casually. “These wet clothes are disgusting.”
“Yes, good idea.” I turn to leave the room and give him privacy, but his laugh stops me.
“I’m not shy, Madison. You can stay. Change too if you want.
I won’t look.” He’s already peeling off his sopping-wet shirt and my god the muscles of his torso are something out of a medical textbook.
The kind doctors in training expect to find in the real world—every muscle and ligament defined—only to realize that average bodies don’t actually look so chiseled.
James’s does.
So I turn away and unzip my bag (also wet from having dragged it along on all our adventures tonight).
I dig out the big sleep shirt I brought and toss it onto the bed.
I don’t even bother to make sure James isn’t looking because 1) he’s so respectful there’s no way he’s peeking when he said he wouldn’t, and 2) I’m not scared of nudity.
If someone dared me to walk through New York naked for a million dollars, I’d laugh knowing I would have done it for twenty.
My shorts hit the floor in a loud wet thud, followed by the echo of James’s jeans doing the same.
Chills I shouldn’t have flood my skin. I attempt to peel my shirt up overhead as gracefully as James did, but it’s so wet it gets stuck around my face and shoulders, arms straight up in the air.
The harder I tug to free myself, the more stuck I get. I’m a human finger trap right now.
As much as I don’t want to . . .
“Uh, James.”
“Hmm?”
“Can you . . . help?”
“Help with w—” His voice goes dead silent.
I can imagine what I look like to him at this moment, standing here in my underwear and bra, hands sticking up over my head with my shirt covering everything from my wrists to my neck. I hope it’s sexy—but I’m betting it’s not judging by the soft laughter James is trying to hide.
“How the hell did you get stuck in there?” His voice is closer now.
“You know how we nineties kids have been preparing all our lives to get stuck in quicksand?”
“Sure.”
“We’ve been training for the wrong situation. Sopping-wet shirts are the real problem.”
“Clearly.” He tugs at the fabric around my elbows, but it just suctions tighter around my head and neck, drawing a squeak from me. “Damn. Okay . . . let me . . .” Another tug but no freedom. “Wait, I have an idea. Come with me.”
And then his bare hands are gently wrapping around the naked curve of my hips, pulling me with him a few steps. I will never recover from that touch. Never.
“I think this is gonna be the trick.” There are sounds of James shifting his weight and then an acute tug at the top of my shirt. The fabric budges, and between whatever he’s doing and my wiggling, the shirt comes off.
Light floods my eyes as I reenter the world and blink into focus: James’s stomach. For some reason, I am eye level with his navel. I stare at his taut, gorgeous abdomen and the soft, subtle dusting of hair that leads down into his . . . gray boxer briefs.
James clears his throat, stepping down from the bed. “I needed leverage.”
As his feet hit the floor, he tosses my shirt onto the pile of his wet clothes and somehow it feels intimate.
Not nearly as intimate as how closely we are standing in our underwear, though.
Neither of us attempts to step away either.
James is somewhere over six feet tall—I’d guess six-three—and I’m right at five feet.
So that puts me level with his collarbones.
My greedy eyes want to explore the mostly naked man terrain in front of me, but I keep my gaze pinned there, on his right collarbone, so pronounced I could drink water from the divot between bone and shoulder muscle.
My heart is something wild, jumping in my chest, and for once I don’t think it has anything to do with my lack of sex but has everything to do with the man who is creating this reaction.
James breathes out and I feel his breath against my forehead. “Do you”—my gaze drops to James’s hand, flexing and then tightening at his side—“have some clothes somewhere?” he says, and this is when I realize his voice sounds odd.
I look up only to find him with his chin in the air, eyes pinned to the ceiling. That gentlemanly son of a bitch.
“James,” I say on a laugh. “You don’t have to look away. I’m not shy either.”
He nods thoughtfully, pressing his lips together, but doesn’t look down at me yet. “Yeah.”
“But you’re not going to?”
“Nope.”
“Because you’re afraid you’ll be overcome with desire when you see me in my plain gray cotton bra and panties?” The sarcasm in my tone is undeniable.
“Yes,” he rasps, and the seriousness of his tone is also undeniable.
Suddenly, I have never wanted anyone to look at me as much as I want him to. Which is a dangerous line to walk.
And yet . . . “Here I thought you were a cowboy, turns out you’re a chicken,” I whisper.
I watch a tiny smile crawl over his mouth before his eyes slowly scrape down to lock with mine. The powerful set of his jaw tells me he’s exercising all of his will to keep them pinned on my face.
I don’t know how to handle this mounting tension. I want both to throw myself against him and to resist it with everything in me . . . because James is easily the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I don’t want to lose him. I don’t want to mess up a single bit of what we have.
No matter how sexy he looks in his underwear.
So with a willpower I didn’t realize I possessed, I lean around James, shoulder brushing the scalding skin of his torso, and snatch the oversized shirt off the bed. He watches as I slide it on, the cotton fabric falling slowly over my chest and hips and landing against my thighs.
“Nice shirt,” he says, tightly—because it’s his. The one I stole and will never return.
I can sense his desire coiling around me like a python as his eyes eat up the sight of me wearing something of his.
“You next.” It comes out breathless.
He strides over to his backpack, crouches, giving me the most achingly beautiful view of his lean, muscular back as he digs around, pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt. He tugs them both on, glides his hand through his damp hair, and makes a ta-da gesture with his hands.
We’re both clothed. We deserve trophies.
James clears his throat. “Should we get some sleep?” he asks, and I am going to need him to stop giving me that crooked grin and bedtime voice or else I will combust.
When did James Huxley become irresistible? When did he morph into the standard against which I judge all other men?
“Sleep sounds good.” I hate sleep.
He nods. “I’ll take the couch.”
“Ha! Sure . . . have fun with that.”
He faces me again with a questioning stare. “Are there spiders in it or something?”
I think back to all the noises I’ve heard coming from that sofa over the last two years. “That would honestly be preferable to what’s really there.”
His face skews. “Do I want to know?”
I give him a look. “You already do.”
He flicks up the comforter. “Well, looks like we’re bunking together tonight, Chef.”
“Totally fine with me.” Fine, fine, fine.
We both hesitate on either side of the bed for a millisecond—make eye contact, smile tensely, then slide in under the covers. We’re grown-ups. We can be mature about this. We can exist together under the sheets without having sex.
James turns out the light on the side table and I see in the sliver of moonlight that he lifts his hand above his head. “I know I should be tired, but I’m not.”
“Me neither.”
“I also kinda want a cigarette.”
I turn my face to him, surprised by his easy admission. “Are you stressed?”