Chapter Twenty-Four Lily
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lily
From my upside-down view, two things were abundantly clear.
First, Barrett’s ass was fantastic.
Second, the man had a death wish.
“Put me down!” I yelled, smacking ineffectively against his back. I almost went for the ass, but the thought of adding any sort of spanking dynamic to whatever was happening here blurred way too many lines, and the sudden addition of the cavemen carry was already doing that quite effectively.
“Once we’re inside, I’ll be happy to.”
A foot of snow had already fallen, and for the last few hours, I’d watched the piles outside grow with increasing alarm. Even the food on the island had started to seem insufficient.
“My food!” I cried, trying to push up but failing miserably. God, I needed to do more ab work.
“What food?”
“I got groceries this morning. A lot of them.”
Barrett grumbled something under his breath that I missed.
The wind on my cheeks was brutal, and I tucked my face against the warm wall of his back until he shoved open the door leading into their garage. Was that betraying my principles? Possibly. But I hated being cold more than I hated being annoyed at the manhandling.
To be honest, I wasn’t even all that annoyed, because it was fun as hell to get mad at this guy. Weirdest kind of foreplay I’d ever experienced.
Once we were inside the house, the world flipped, and as soon as my feet were on the ground, I scrambled back, trying desperately to fix my hair. He thrust his hand out, my hat tight in his grip. What with all the flinging of my body, I hadn’t even noticed it had fallen off.
With as much dignity as I could muster, I tugged it back in place.
“You’ve got some nerve,” I said, chin raised.
Of course, his face was even. Patient. So was his voice when he said, “And was it preferable to letting you freeze over there?”
“Well, no. But you could have talked me into it like a normal person.”
He leaned in, gaze so unflinchingly potent that I felt it tug behind my belly button. “Because you were so keen to listen.”
I ignored that, gesturing between us. “And while we’re on the subject of talking to people,” I said, enunciating the last three words with just a little bit of extra oomph, “wouldn’t it be nice to reveal a certain little factoid about yourself ahead of time?
Like, Oh, hey, Lily, there’s fucking two of me in this world.
And you won’t be able to tell the difference between us even if you’re staring the other one right in the face? ”
Was I yelling?
I was yelling.
While he tilted his head, eyes studying my face, I rolled my lips together and tried to dredge up some sort of calming ritual. Deep breathing. Something.
“I told you I had a brother.” He crossed his arms. “I even told you my brother was here. And invited you to dinner last night, where you could have met him. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret. I just don’t . . . I don’t know, walk around proclaiming it to people.”
“Why not? You should.” Hysteria crept into my voice while I replayed all the absolute nonsense I’d spewed at his brother.
Had he told Barrett? If he did, I was just going to lock myself in his guest room and not come out until the power returned.
“I feel like the universe is punishing me. Can’t handle one Barrett King?
Too bad! Behind this curtain, there’s another one,” I said, holding my hands out like some cheesy game show host.
His eyes gleamed. His lips twitched.
“Don’t,” I said in a low voice, even stepping closely enough that I raised a shaking finger and poked it into the hard expanse of his chest. “Don’t you dare smile at me for the first time about this.”
“Why not?”
The slight bend to the corners of his mouth was driving me out of my mind. It was almost there, and my chest almost fucking caved in imagining it.
I’d lose it. I’d . . . I didn’t even know. Would I slap him? Would I kiss him? Honestly, it was a toss-up. But I was already driving the anger train straight through this storm—why stop now?
“Would that drive you crazy?” he asked, taking a step closer to me now. My breath hitched, and he heard it, his gaze shifting heatedly to my parted lips. “It’s only fair, given your mouth has driven me out of my fucking mind since the moment we met.”
Oh.
Oh.
We were admitting things. Not dancing around them or skirting the edge of a line.
“Are you thinking about kissing me right now?” I whispered, head spinning like a top.
“Yes.”
“Oh.” I licked my bottom lip.
“Oh.”
“Do . . . do you have an angry-woman fetish or something?”
His eyes, dark and fathomless, stayed right on my mouth. “No. I think it’s just you.”
“That’s interesting, and I’m not entirely sure what to make of that, now that we’re stuck in your house with no kids or family to distract us.
” Barrett’s gaze moved up to mine. But I couldn’t stop.
Words spilled out even though a blaring siren in the back of my head was telling me to shut.
The fuck. Up. “Are you just thinking about kissing me because I’m here, or do you want to kiss me? ”
That asshole didn’t answer my question, simply kept his broody sex eyes right on mine and spoke in a ragged sex voice that all went very nicely with his big, tall sex body.
“I’ve racked my brain trying to figure out what would happen if I did.
” His tongue darted out, licking his bottom lip in the same way I had, and I realized exactly how much of a tease that was. “Why don’t you tell me?”
My fingers curled into fists at my sides. “We’d probably have sex,” I whispered. “M-maybe even right in your kitchen because we couldn’t wait. On the floor. Or the counter. Or . . . maybe the couch since it’s easier on the joints.”
A noise came from the back of Barrett’s throat, like he was urging me on.
My verbal filter was gone, and if I’d stopped to think even for a moment about how good that kitchen sex might be, and how pleasant this weekend could turn out for my lifetime orgasm count, I might not have said what I said next.
“But you know I’m leaving. And this can’t be anything, and . . . and I get the feeling that’s not enough for you.”
Barrett’s eyelids dropped in a slow blink, and he took a step back, seeming to gather himself as the promise of kitchen sex disappeared in a poof with two poorly timed sentences from me.
He rubbed the back of his neck as he stared at me. “I didn’t bring you here for this,” he said, shoulders deflating on a sigh. “And I shouldn’t have . . . I shouldn’t have antagonized you that way. Forgive me.”
There was no rebuttal to what I’d said. No denial that it was true or not.
But given that his hands weren’t up my shirt and his tongue wasn’t in my mouth, I had a feeling it was true.
That I’d pegged him exactly right. As slightly old-fashioned.
That he wanted to respect me in the way he knew how.
Only start something he could stick with.
That he could commit to in a meaningful way.
That he wanted me.
I was right about that too.
Somehow that made it even worse. Everything I’d said to his brother came rushing back, because this was the kind of thing that made me want to yell and maybe shove him a little bit.
Not a mean shove. The kind of shove you do when you actually hope a man will forget he doesn’t have casual sex, and that shove is the last straw before he kisses the hell out you.
“Forgiven,” I said softly.
Barrett nodded. “There are blankets on the couch, and I’ve got the fire on. Go warm up.”
I wrapped my arms around my middle. “What are you going to do?”
Again, the firm line of his mouth softened, that damn almost-smile that would probably haunt me in my dreams. “Go rescue the groceries.”
“I can go get them,” I told him.
“Are you cold?”
I blinked. “Yes.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
Inconvenient things were happening in the pit of my belly. Not butterflies, per se. More like pleasant little bursts of heat. Warm and comforting in the midst of a very cold, very shitty week. I wanted to hold them in my hand and let them melt against the skin of my chest.
“Can you, um, can you grab the small blue bag on the bathroom counter while you’re over there? Someone didn’t really give me time to pack, and I’d like to have my toothbrush.”
His cheekbones washed with pink, and the sight of his embarrassment was more than I could handle. It was so fucking endearing, I wanted to cry.
“Anything else?” he asked in a rough voice.
“Maybe, um, the laundry basket on the kitchen island. It’s clean, I just never got the chance to put it away. You could use it to carry the other stuff too.”
Before I could say anything, he was out the door again, leaving me with no clarity, more confusion, and a raging crush that seemed doomed from the start.
Barrett was gone for less than ten minutes, but I swear I’d started to doze underneath the weight of the blankets on the couch.
My feet were shoved into his slippers, because if the man was going to leave those puppies lying around, then I could not be blamed when I used them for myself.
I buried my nose into the blankets and inhaled.
They smelled like him. Had he used them before the power went out?
A gust of cold air preceded him into the house, and my eyes flew open when he slammed the door shut.
Based on the sounds coming from down the hall, I could track his movements.
The laundry basket getting set on the floor.
The thunk of his boots on the tray next to the door.
The shift of the material of his coat as he hung it up on the wall, and then a small noise as he picked up the laundry basket after he’d set it down.
I hadn’t been sure he’d be able to fit it all, but as he came into the kitchen, I smothered my embarrassed smile at how many bags of groceries were clutched in his hands, on top of everything in the basket. Barrett set everything down on the counter and then stood back, hands on his hips.
“May I ask you a question?”
“Mmm-hmm.”