32. Kyle
KYLE
The smell of something sweet and delicious roused Kyle from his sleep, and he blinked, trying to find his bearings. Instinctively, he reached for Sloan, only to find the spot in her bed beside him empty.
He frowned, the realization waking him further.
She’d texted she’d be out late tonight, but he hadn’t gone to bed until after midnight.
Getting up, he pulled on a pair of mesh shorts and stumbled toward the door, rubbing his eyes. He closed the dogs into the room not to wake them, then started down the hallway toward the kitchen, where he assumed the smell must have come from.
Sloan wasn’t there. There was a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies, though, cooling on a rack on the counter. The clock on the microwave read 2:23.
Why the hell is she baking at this hour?
Swiping a cookie from the rack, he turned, half expecting to find her asleep on the couch.
She didn’t appear to be there, either.
He glanced back down the hall. A thin strip of light came from the third, unused bedroom at the very end of the hall. Maybe she was in there?
Kyle started for it, taking a bite of the cookie.
God damn. Better than I remembered. Just a hint of cinnamon, soft and not overly sweet, the way chocolate chip cookies often were. He’d missed this flavor.
Reaching the bedroom, he set his hand on the knob. He turned it slowly, not wanting to startle her . . . and nearly dropped his cookie.
Sloan stood on a stool near the long—formerly blank—wall in the room, paint brush in hand. She held a paint palette in her right hand and a paintbrush in her left as she leaned forward, swirling blue paint onto a flower on the wall.
The wall had already been transformed. It wasn’t close to being finished, obviously, but a swirl of color swam before his eyes. Bright red flowers, green fern leaves, and sunflowers.
And a paint-splattered, gorgeous woman in the middle of all it, wearing the yellow sundress she’d worn to work. A white patch, taped on all four sides, was on her right bicep.
She swayed slightly, singing softly under her breath, and that’s when he realized she had earbuds in her ears, listening to music.
Was she drunk? High?
Kyle came closer, unsure if he should be amused or concerned. On the one hand, seeing her so clearly happy and free made him think he shouldn’t interfere and just leave her to her own devices. He had to be up early for a meeting with a potential sponsor anyway.
On the other— it’s two thirty in the morning, and she’s wearing a bandage. And was baking? Did she get hurt baking?
The evidence that she might be drunk was adding up.
He came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder.
Letting out a cry, Sloan dropped her paint palette and cried out, “Oh fuck!”
His hand shot out to catch the palette and . . . he did, before bringing it back flat against his chest.
Sloan turned toward him, eyes wide as she yanked her earbuds out. “Oh my God, you scared me!”
He blinked at her, pulling the palette back from his chest to reveal a wide smear of colored paints across his chest, almost rainbow style, but without the magic. “What are you doing?” he asked, bewildered.
“Painting a mural,” she said with a contented smile. “Obviously.”
“At two thirty in the morning?”
She climbed down from the stool. “I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” She crossed the room for a roll of paper towels.
“No, that was the smell of cookies.”
Sloan shrugged. “Yeah, I got hungry.” She ripped off a sheet of paper towel and came toward him, dabbing at some of the excess paint.
“Well, did you burn yourself?”
That made her give him a confused look. “Huh?”
He pointed at the bandage. “How’d you get hurt?”
“Oh.” She smiled, almost dreamily now. “I got a tattoo.”
A what?
As she swiped more paint, leaving an even larger smear on his chest, he caught her wrist, forcing her to still and look up at him. “Are you drunk?” he asked, searching her gaze.
“No . . .” Her mouth curved in a slight frown. “I mean I had a couple of glasses of wine before the tattoo, but that’s definitely worn off by now. I’m just happy. Alive.”
Happy. Alive.
He stared at her. What the hell provoked this?
“I think I need to put some water on that,” Sloan said, her gaze going back to his chest. She pulled her wrist back, but his grip didn’t loosen.
“What’s going on?” he asked, giving her a hard stare.
Sloan looked like she might deflect it with a joke.
That’s how it had been for them the last few weeks.
Smiles, light tone, something breezy to keep things comfortable.
Humor as a shield. They hadn’t touched on what they’d spoken about the night he left Tara’s unicorn at the paint shop, but they also hadn’t needed to.
With the air cleared between them, there was nothing else to say, although it still rankled him, knowing that Evan Tipton was unscrupulous and had gotten away with all his lies.
The fuck had even made complete lies out of thin air.
And he’s a future leader of the American people . . . God help us all.
Things were good with Sloan, but Kyle had definitely wondered if the attraction was all one-sided.
Sure, she slept better with him there, but that might not be him , just a presence.
After all, she had been in a long-term relationship.
So, he’d forced himself to lose himself in his goal of getting a new show off the ground.
Sloan’s gaze flicked past him, toward the half-finished mural, toward the riot of color climbing the wall like something alive. “I went and did something stupid. Maybe brave. I haven’t finished making my mind up about it yet.”
Kyle loosened his grip just enough for her to slip her wrist free, suddenly aware of how close they stood—bare feet on the hardwood, her paint-splattered toes inches from his, her breath still faintly sweet with cinnamon.
“You look wired.”
She huffed out a quiet laugh. “That’s probably more accurate.” She reached up and, after a beat of hesitation, peeled back the edge of the bandage on her arm. Just enough to show him dark, clean lines beneath, still a little red around the edges.
The silhouettes of small birds in flight, the larger ones toward the bottom, like you might see them from the earth. “Delilah drew it for me. I just wanted something that felt . . . free.”
“Did she put you up to it?”
Her honey-colored eyes flickered with hesitation, as though bracing for his judgment.
She seemed to calm, as he smoothed his thumb over the sore skin with admiration, releasing a soft exhale.
“No. I mean, sort of. But not in the way that makes it something I didn’t want to do.
She just challenged me to make a list of all the things I’ve always wanted to do and never did—not big-bucket list things like climbing Mount Everest. The small things.
” Her eyes sparkled again. “And I was so excited when I got home, I just wanted to start some of them immediately.”
He could see in her face how much she loved the tattoo. How happy she was.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her this happy, actually. Not in the last few weeks. Not in Breckenridge. Not even when they’d been dating . . . toward the end. Especially not when they ended their relationship, but she had just lost her mom.
“So, you decided to paint a mural at two in the morning?” he said dryly, a light chuckle in his voice.
“I think around twelve thirty, technically.” She sagged a little, then laughed under her breath and turned away, gesturing helplessly at the wall.
“I’d never get to sleep. My brain wouldn’t shut up.
So, I thought I’d just start. I’ve been seeing this in my head for weeks while I’ve been teaching classes. ”
“It’s incredible.” The mural wasn’t just pretty, it was alive. Messy in the best possible way.
She glanced at him, surprised. “You don’t think it’s too much?”
“I think it’s you.”
Her expression and the late-night adrenaline, softened into something quieter, more vulnerable, and she stepped closer still. “And this?” She lifted her fingertips toward his chest, still streaked with paint, and smudged the paint softly, like she was fingerpainting onto his skin.
He held her gaze, aware of how her touch had detonated more than just a spark in him. His heart pounded hard, his mouth had gone dry as he struggled to string a sentence together. “I think I’ll be finding blue in my pores for a week.”
She grinned, dropping her hand. “Sit,” she said, decisively pointing toward the stool.
He did as she said, settling into the stool as she disappeared from the bedroom. A few moments later, she returned with a damp washcloth. “Scoot your legs open,” she said with a smirk, like it was the most natural thing in the world. He pushed his knees apart as she stepped between them.
Holy fuck.
She dragged the cloth across his chest carefully, smiling as the cloth came away streaked with color.
Her fingers brushed his skin, resting against his injured shoulder, her thumb brushing over the scars in a gentle sweep that would have seemed almost absentminded if it hadn’t been so deliberate in its placement.
Every time it happened his breath hitched like he’d forgotten how lungs worked.
“Hold still,” she murmured.
“I am holding still.”
“You look like you’re holding your breath.” She smiled without looking up.
“That’s not voluntary.”
She scrubbed once more, then paused, her gaze lifting to his.
They were close. Too close for this to still be nothing.
Her eyes tracked over his face, the flush on her cheeks giving her face a pink glow, her full, luscious mouth opening just slightly. The room went silent except for the soft, uneven rhythm of their breathing.
“Sloan.”
“Yeah?”
His chest tightened. He reached up before he could overthink it and brushed his thumb along her wrist, right where her pulse fluttered under her skin. “I like seeing you happy.”