Chapter 22
When I arrive home from a late day at the shop, it’s in time to see Arthur getting comfortable in his chair. From day one, I’ve known it as his chair. A plush recliner he settles himself into most evenings with a book or to watch TV.
He sets up camp in that chair until it’s time to get ready for bed.
Sometimes, I have trouble pairing this man with the one he used to be. A world traveler, driving across the country in a van he slept in most nights.
I’m not saying this is a lesser version in any way. I just wonder if Arthur burned himself out on adventures. Or if he came back to Green Valley, purchased that chair, and realized what true comfort was and decided not to deviate.
Comfort zones are fine. But they aren’t going to help him find the love of his life.
I offer Arthur a wave before trotting upstairs and heading to the shower. As I stand under the hot spray and scrub the oil from under my nails, I brainstorm how to strike a balance with what the postman thinks he wants and the quiet life he’s built for himself.
And where our deal fits into this.
After the dinner at his father’s house, I’m even more determined to sell this fake relationship ruse. The way Daren looked at me, with determination and expectation, had my pain machine churning to life, running on angry fuel.
I could see in his face what he wanted. Me. Us. What we used to have.
How can he not understand that everything we built our relationship on is gone now?
This arrangement with Arthur started out as a way to hurt Daren, but now, I want it to strike home the fact that I’m done with my ex. Fully and completely. That I’m never going back.
I don’t care that he’s sorry. I don’t care if he swears to never do it again.
I already broke one of my rules for Daren—never make a major life decision based on what a man wants. When he asked me to move to Green Valley with him, to take a chance on him in his hometown, I pushed aside my doubts and followed him here.
Daren had a chance to prove my pessimistic heart wrong.
But he just became another bullet point on a list of losers.
He needs to release his clutching grasp on the idea of a future with us together. And if that means I need to stay close to Arthur for the foreseeable future, so be it.
Clean with my damp hair piled high on my head, I head to the kitchen, not surprised to see the postman where I left him when I pass by the living room. I make myself a sandwich and try to focus on my school assignments due this week. While eating mechanically, I log in to the online portal and type out a few responses to questions my professors posted in the discussion forums. There are a few I need to provide citations for, so I leave them until later, abandoning my laptop to clean my dishes. As the suds cover my hands, my mind goes back to the man in the next room.
Has he moved his butt an inch?
Probably not.
Curiosity has me drying my hands, scooping up my textbook, and meandering to the living room.
Once again, he’s where I left him.
Arthur grunts a greeting when I settle on the nearby couch, but his eyes don’t leave the page of his book. Looks like a crime thriller from the cover.
“What’s your book about?” I ask.
A set of dark eyes trips to me, then away. He folds down a page corner, closes the book, then passes it to me.
I guess that’s one way to answer. As I read the back cover—which tells me it’s a crime thriller, as I suspected—Arthur reclines in his chair, tilts his head back, and closes his eyes.
“Are you done reading?” I ask, feeling guilty that I interrupted him.
He extends an arm, palm open, not looking at me. I set the book in his massive palm and watch as he lifts his head, flips back to the page he was on, and resumes reading.
I bite my lips to keep from grinning. Arthur’s unwillingness to use words when grunts and actions would do always frustrated Daren. Meanwhile, I found the practice both hilarious and fascinating.
And when I can get him to speak multiple sentences in a row, the words feel like an accomplishment.
I settle into the couch, which is made in the same vein as Arthur’s easy chair and yet is slightly less comfortable. I know because I’ll often claim the chair after he goes to bed. I don’t know why the chair is better than the couch; all I know is that it is. Maybe it’s the forbidden nature of it. Not that Arthur has ever told me I can’t use his chair.
But his deeply dipped brows have made the unspoken rule clear.
As the evening progresses, I do my best to read the assigned chapters in my textbook. Highlighting helps some, but my attention keeps sneaking to the side. To Arthur and his relaxed state.
With a sigh, I shut my textbook and admit that my brain won’t go into focus mode until later. Probably when I’m trying to fall asleep.
Right now, my time would be better spent taking a nap. Stretching out on the couch, I find my body rolling to face Arthur. Studying the burly man.
He looks truly relaxed in his worn Green Valley High School T-shirt and black sweatpants. I wonder if the postman has any gray sweatpants. Then, I wonder if he knows about the portion of the female population that go rabid for a well-endowed man in formfitting cotton bottoms.
He’d probably grumble something unintelligible if I told him, and the skin above his beard would flush. The thought has me smiling.
Maybe I’ll get him a pair and tell him when we’re too far from the house for him to change.
Arthur flips another page while tilting his head back and forth until I hear a crack in his neck. He lets out a contented sigh, as if that relieved a twinge that had been bothering him. Somehow, he relaxes even more, his large body lax in his seat, the only flexed muscle is the biceps of the arm holding his book.
This is how he should be when he’s kissing.
The thought pops into my head and stays there.
If Arthur could be this chill when locking lips, he’d have ladies lining up for seconds, thirds...fiftieths.
He could get there. He just needs practice.
And here I am, squatting in his house, about to nap on his comfy couch, then use his Wi-Fi later, all without doing much to fulfill my half of our bargain.
Helping him is the responsible thing to do.
“Let me know when you finish your next chapter,” I say, coming to a decision.
I’m not a big read-for-fun person, but my mom loves her books and always turned into an angry badger if I interrupted her during a good scene. Now, I try to be a conscientious interrupter.
Arthur grunts his assent, and after another minute passes, he folds his page down again and glances my way, one eyebrow raised.
“How do you feel right now?” I ask.
Confusion creates a crease in his forehead. “Fine.”
I push up from the couch and cross the small amount of space between us to settle on the thick armrest of his chair. “You’re relaxed, right? Not silently stewing and stressing about something while pretending to be a cool cucumber?”
The corner of his beard twitches toward a smile. “I’m relaxed.”
“Good.” I pluck his book from his slack fingers and set it on the coffee table. “Then, this is the perfect time to practice kissing.”
Arthur’s brows shoot up, eyes going wide, entire body tensing.
So much for being relaxed.
“What?” he rasps.
“Kissing practice,” I repeat. Committing to my decision, I climb into Arthur’s lap, settling my legs on either side of his hips, resting my butt on his massive thighs. “You don’t even have to get up. You’re going to lounge here like you’re reading your book, like usual. But instead, you’re going to be making out with me. Sound good?”
My once-relaxed postman is a concrete statue beneath me. “Reading and kissing are different,” he says, as if I don’t know that.
“Thank you for that vital piece of information. I’ll stop tonguing the pages of all my textbooks.”
Arthur’s gaze flicks to the side, where I’ve left my reading material, as if he expects to find lipstick marks on the cover.
I roll my eyes and cup his cheeks in my hands, enjoying the way his beard tickles my palms. Turning his face forward so I can meet his eyes, I offer him a confident smile.
“You can do this, Arthur Kraut. I believe in you. Think of me as your kissing crash-test dummy. You can make every mistake possible until we get this right. No pressure. No time limit. Other than your nonnegotiable bedtime, of course.” I smirk, and his eyes narrow, which only has me grinning.
Dropping my hands from Arthur’s face to his shoulders, I knead the tight muscles leading to his neck. It’s like pressing my fingers into iron, but I don’t let up.
“We’ll go slow,” I promise. “I won’t judge you. I’m here to help.” My hands keep working as I lean forward, pausing when my mouth is a breath from his. “This okay?”
He sucks in a tight breath, but his chin jerks in a nod.
I close my eyes so he doesn’t see the amusement in them. This big bear of a man is acting like he’s terrified of me. What’s there to be scared of?
Well...I guess he did see me go full revenge destruction mode on my ex.
But other than a wet, chilly nutsack, I didn’t physically injure Daren.
And Arthur could never hurt me like Daren did.
The conclusion is an odd one. Not because I’m surprised by it. What shocks me is the reasoning.
I should know Arthur can’t hurt me because I don’t love him like I loved his cousin. But that’s not what came to my mind.
What has me so certain is that Arthur is just...too good. He would never fool around on the woman he loved.
Daren would. In my gut—deep down where I didn’t want to admit it when I was falling for him—I knew Daren had a selfish side. A side that could take the reins and hurt me.
But Arthur never would.
If I loved him like that. Which I don’t, of course. He’s just a friend.
Needing to think of something other than how decent of a person the man between my legs is, I cross the final inch and kiss him.
And he’s . . .
Bad.
Oh, Arthur. You big, adorable, terrible-at-kissing bear of a man.
More like a bear who wandered out in the middle of winter when he should have been hibernating, but instead got stuck in a snowstorm and froze solid.
Arthur is an unmoving mass beneath me, mouth unyielding, body reclined and held still, as if this easy chair were a gurney someone had strapped him to.
But I planned for this and decided before I straddled him that I wouldn’t stop until he asked me to. So, I treat Arthur like I did my pillow in middle school when I was figuring out kissing for the first time. And, hey, maybe I can get some practice out of this too.
I haven’t thought much about my kissing technique in a while. For the past few years, I only kissed Daren, and that was like riding a bike. I didn’t have to ponder it much. Before my ex, I would often opt for late-night hookups that had a touch of tipsiness to ease the intimacy.
Now though, I can experiment. I can challenge myself.
What will get this stoic mailman to drop his walls? Can my lips tease a softness out that I know is in there?
Even though Arthur’s jaw is tight, his lips are still pillowy, and I play with them, brushing mine along the fuller bottom one. Pressing quick kisses at the corners of his mouth, where I saw a smile playing earlier. Then, I take a short break to rub my lips against the curls of his beard, seeking out the same tickle I felt on my palms.
“Hmm.” I chuckle to myself, enjoying the rough tease. “I’m a beard girl. Learn something new every day.”
Arthur grunts a questioning noise, and I swear the tension in his neck eases a touch. When I return to his mouth, I find his lips have parted the barest bit, and I take full advantage, sucking and nipping. Rewarding his progress. Arthur lets out a deep noise of shock.
“That’s it,” I encourage him between another series of quick kisses. “Just like that.”
“Don’t talk,” he grits out.
I gasp a laugh and press myself flush against Arthur’s chest, wrapping my arms around his neck, even as I rear my head back enough to meet his gaze. “I’m the teacher. I’ll fucking talk if I want to.” Then, I kiss the tip of his nose. “You relaxed yet? Feel like you’re reading a bestseller and drinking a cold beer?”
Arthur frowns, eyes dark, and the expression tempts me to laugh more, but I don’t want him to misinterpret the noise as mocking him.
It’s just . . . I’m having fun.
But I want Arthur to think kissing is fun too. And if this is torturous, we should probably stop, as much as I’d like to spend the whole evening like this.
“Have you had enough practice, or do you want some more?” I ask.
His hard stare drops to my mouth, and that intense focus sends a bolt of pleasure straight to my nipples. Whatever Arthur lacks in make-out technique, he makes up for in hot looks.
“More,” he growls.
Oh, wow. That just did things to me. Pleasant clenching things deep in my belly.
But I take that response from my body as a good sign. Even though this is practice, the best way to tell if Arthur is improving is by observing my own reaction.
If he can heat me up—a woman who thinks of him as a platonic friend and is also in the middle of a man-hating life moment—then he must be getting better.
“More it is.” I refocus on his lower lip. So juicy that I want to bite it. But not hard. A gentle show of how a good kiss is a range of movements. It’s creativity and exploration. It’s surprises and textures.
His beard brushes my cheeks again, and I let out a pleased hum.
As if my noise triggered something, Arthur stands abruptly, taking me with him since I still have my hold around his neck. For a brief second, I notice the press of something hard and long between us, but then Arthur peels my arms away, turns to drop me on his recliner, then strides out of the room.
Running from me like I set the ass of his sweatpants on fire.