Win #2
She walks in wearing her pink-striped pajamas, her curious gaze sweeping the room before settling on the small stack of books on my nightstand.
She got ready for bed, even braiding her hair.
I’m still in my jeans and t-shirt because I’ve spent the last few minutes pacing in my room, working myself up to a conversation I chickened out of.
“Oh. I didn’t know people read cookbooks before bed.”
I keep my fantasy novels in a small bookcase in the living room, ready to read on the back porch if I’m not too tired from work.
Cookbooks are my preferred nighttime reading.
Joel thinks it’s hilarious and warns me away from any cheese recipes in case they trigger weird dreams. I’ve never been able to explain to him why cookbooks relax me the way they do, but now, I have to find a way to explain it to Rose without kicking off that ‘let’s be friends’ conversation.
Shutting the door, I scratch the back of my hot neck and cross over to the bed, where she perches on the edge to flip through an Italian cookbook.
“Nico lets me create the weekly special, and they’re for inspiration.”
She scrunches her nose and returns the book to the nightstand.
“Doesn’t it make you hungry? If I was looking at cookbooks before bed, my stomach would be growling all night, no matter how much food I ate at dinner.
I’d probably wake up to find I’d been chewing on my pillow, thinking it was a steak. ”
This is yet another reason I walked away from her door without saying a word. She makes me smile without any effort, and I like her too damn much for this relationship to go the way all my others have.
“Sometimes,” I admit. “But flipping through a cookbook is… relaxing as well. It lets my brain switch off from the day in a way nothing else does. Not sure why.”
She smiles. “That’s how my nest would feel. Like the rest of the world was far away, and I was in a bubble where no one could reach me and nothing could hurt me. Sometimes the world can be too loud and so overwhelming that I’d want to hide for a couple of hours.”
My shoulders sag in relief that she gets it. I’m not an omega who needs a nest, but hearing her talk about it is interesting. “Yeah?”
She nods. “Not that I spent much time in my nest after Simon died. Ben needed me. I did miss it.” She looks a touch wistful, then shakes her head. “Sorry, that isn’t what I came here to talk to you about. I started thinking I was doing something wrong when you ended our kiss so fast.”
My mouth opens, and she lifts her hand, a sign she isn’t finished yet. “Then I remembered what I was like when I first came to Rios—running from my feelings, denying they existed. Afraid. And I thought maybe you might be as scared as I was before, but you’re just better at hiding it than I was.”
She says it so quietly. So… simply.
But with those quiet words and her open, honest expression, she lifts the thousand-pound weight I’ve been carrying around these last few days.
“I’m used to being the friend,” I admit. “I’m good at being ‘Win Gabriel, the friend’.”
So damn good that any relationship I’ve had has soon switched from romantic to friendly in the blink of an eye. I got used to handling disappointment and frustration so well that no one ever saw it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t feel it.
I look away. “You’re so beautiful, Rose, inside and out.”
Too beautiful for the likes of me.
She takes my hand and squeezes it. “I wish you could see yourself the way I do. Maybe you wouldn’t be thinking the thoughts you’re having. Can you look at me for a second?”
Hoping this relationship won’t end the way they always do, I look at her. She cups my jaw, her soft palm a warm caress I lean into.
“I won’t decide that I just want to be your friend, Win.”
“You don’t know that.”
She takes her hand from my face and rests it above her left breast. “I do, because my heart tells me that this love isn’t the ‘I love you as a friend’ kind.
And I know exactly what that’s like because it’s how I feel about Sam.
With you, it’s different. It has always been different.
Don’t you remember me hugging you too long outside the motel? ”
I nod. She’d clung to me. “You were relieved I’d helped you find Ben.”
She snorts. “My thoughts weren’t that innocent, Win. Yes, I was relieved you’d helped find Ben, but I couldn’t make myself let you go. That’s why.”
I stare at her, afraid to hope. Terrified to ask her to repeat it in case this is wishful thinking and I’ll wake up in a few minutes, alone in my bed.
She smiles. “I mean it, Win. I love you, so please stop looking at me as if you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. There is no other shoe. I come to you with bare feet to tell you that I love you so much, and hoping you feel the same way.”
“I love you too, Rose.” I draw her into a hug. “And I’ve never been happier since you and Ben moved in here. None of us have.”
She laughs. “I told myself I was nuts for moving in with men I barely knew, and that something would go wrong. But everything went right.” She tips her head back to meet my gaze.
“That’s because of you. You gave Ben and me the safest, happiest, and most perfect place to call home.
But I don’t love this house half as much as I love you. ”
I kiss her softly at first, then more desperately until we break apart, our breathing unsteady and our foreheads touching.
“And…” Her voice trails off, and her cheeks turn pink.
“And?” I ask, beyond curious about the reason for her pink cheeks.
Her gaze skates away from me, and she clears her throat. “Um, I might have had thoughts about you touching me in places that aren’t the least bit friendly. That’s how I can be utterly sure that my feelings for you aren’t the platonic kind.”
She studies the wall, her cheeks pink; I stare at her, my pants increasingly tight.
“Like?”
She darts a rapid glance at me. “Um, my body.”
My gaze drops, and it’s becoming a battle not to adjust myself in my pants. She’s petite yet curvy, and there are a million places I want to touch her, but I’m curious about what she’d want. “Anywhere in particular?”
She gestures to her chest. “My breasts.”
I wet my lower lip with the tip of my tongue, anticipating tasting her, and not just her breasts. “Which one?”
Her eyes snap toward me. “What?”
“Which one? Or was I just—”
“The right,” she blurts, then blushes even harder as she yanks her gaze back to the wall.
“Over your shirt or under it?” I ask, my voice husky.
She takes a breath and lets it out in a soft exhale. “Under it.”
Hesitating for a beat, I lift my hand and slip it under her shirt.
She’s not wearing a bra under her cotton pajamas, and I struggle with this new bit of information as I marvel at how soft, warm, and satiny her skin is.
I’ve imagined this. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t, but imagination and reality are worlds apart. Entire universes apart.
She stops breathing. Hell, I’m probably breathing fast enough for the both of us.
Her breath returns in a whoosh as my fingers brush the underside of her right breast. A small sound escapes her slightly parted lips, half-sigh of relief, half-moan.
Knowing she likes it from her response, I cup her breast and gently stroke the pebbled nipple with my thumb while lowering my face to hers. “Where else was I touching you? Or was I kissing you at the same time?”
Her eyes settle on my mouth, and her gaze is hungry. “Kissing me. Definitely. Before… um, more touching in other places.”
I smile and brush my lips across hers. She lifts her chin, returning the kiss as eagerly as she always does. Her hands slide around my shoulders as I gently lay her back on the bed. As much as I struggle to believe this is real, it feels so right.
My hand caresses her right breast, teasing the nipple and swallowing her moans as she arches into my touch. Her soft complaint when I lift my palm turns into a deeper moan when I move onto her neglected left breast.
I break the kiss to peer down at her beautiful face. How can I be this lucky?
“More touching?” I whisper.
She slips her hands under my shirt, her fingers hot against my lower back. “Yes, please.”
Never could I have believed two such innocent words would have the effect those do on my dick. And on my heart.
As my mouth finds hers, my hand strokes over her hip and under the waistband of her pajamas.
She’s not wearing panties.
My brain short-circuits for the second time as my fingers delve between her soft thighs and glide along her bare, damp pussy.
She makes a sound in the back of her throat, and I break the kiss to peer down at her.
I start to tell her it’s been a while since I’ve done this, and I’m not sure if I can make her feel as good as I want to.
“Don’t stop,” she whispers.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She laughs, and I chuckle, the tension in my shoulders lifting as I reclaim her lips again.
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t need to guess. I just need to read Rose’s body, and her wiggles, her gasps, and her moans, tell me whether I’m doing something she likes.
Her hand lowers, her fingers brushing the front of my pants and reaching for my fly.
I freeze. My heart hammers against my chest, and my cock strains against denim, desperate for her touch.
“Sorry,” she apologizes, and starts pulling her hand away. “I just—”
“Don’t stop. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“Me to touch you or me to have thoughts about wanting to?”
I stare down at her. She must feel my cock getting harder against her hand, right?
“You have thoughts about…” I shake my head. “Don’t tell me. Not now. I’m not sure how long this would last if you did.”
“So I’ll tell you after?”