Chapter 21
21
Kit
I blink up at him for a few heartbeats before comprehension sets in. Bedroom. Now.
Let’s do this.
I guess it’s time.
He holds his hand out.
Okay, then.
I slurp the last of the bubbles, wishing I could drink three more glasses, and work hard to make the switch from bubbles to business.
He watches me as I drink, blue eyes gone completely opaque, dark and hard. Unfriendly, almost, in a way that tickles my tummy and straightens my back. Sends my blood boiling south again, even as a fresh hint of unease slides through my veins. It’s just the two of us here in my little, girlie cottage of a home. My grandparents’ cottage. The hotel was different, though it’s hard to pinpoint all the reasons why.
He’s huge, first of all. I mean, I knew that, but I didn’t think about how he’d take up all the space—not to mention air—when standing in my house.
I hand him the glass and point out the way to my room, not for one second allowing myself to wonder where he’s going after this session with me. Does he have a date he doesn’t want to be late for? A night out with the guys? Will he tell them about how he came straight from an impregnation?
A breeding , as he so gallantly put it.
My skin flushes hot at the thought. No way. This man doesn’t tell anyone anything. It’s one of the things that both intrigues and concerns me about him. What kind of person keeps their secrets held so tightly to their chest, bares so little of their insides to the outside world?
Unless there’s just nothing in there. That’s possible too, I guess.
Yeah, right. If anything, I’d say this man is too complex. Rife with complication.
Then there’s the fact that I’ve not mentioned this whole set-up between us to a soul.
He pauses beside my door, waiting for me to enter my room before following me in and that strikes me as such a strangely gentlemanly move from a man who looks like a thug that I pause, suddenly flummoxed.
Aside from his crass mouth, he has been a gentleman, every step of the way. For some inexplicable reason, that knowledge lodges in the narrow hollow at the base of my throat.
I almost tell him to leave the door open.
What must he think of my place, this man with the violent past and the nomadic present? He’s got money now, despite his misspent youth. He can probably afford to stay in nice places when he travels. Does he notice the cheap plastic blinds I didn’t bother changing out when I got the house? The bedding, clean, but rumpled, because no matter how hard I try, I’ve never been able to make a straight line or perfectly smooth out a sheet in my life. The little striped rug on just my side of the bed, bought because I keep the heat low to save money and I hate cold feet in the morning.
There’s none on the other side, of course. Why bother, right?
Looking at it now, it’s painfully obvious that this is a one-person bed. A one-person home. A one-person life.
For the first time, I wonder what his place is like. Though he gave me his address when I hired him, I’ve got no idea where he lives. Is it a dump, a swank bachelor pad, maybe a lonely little house like mine, in need of TLC?
No. It’s impermanent, I know that much. Even if it’s a place he owns, it’s probably a crash pad. Simple, utilitarian, that’s what I’d guess knowing him now.
“It’s um, it’s not fancy,” I say, immediately annoyed at myself for feeling like I’ve got to explain my bedroom.
“It’s nice.”
“A little too bright in here.”
His dark brows lift. “Okay.”
“I…I don’t know how to do this.” If we’re looking at each other, I mean.
“How to do it? You did it the other night just fine.” A wicked little half-grin. “Not to mention out in the hallway just now.”
I let out a frustrated groan.
He’s already unbuttoning his plaid shirt, revealing a white T-shirt beneath, a smattering of dark chest hair visible at the neck, and it occurs to me that I’m about to see him naked and that’s way, way more than I’d bargained for when I agreed to this.
“You, um, you shouldn’t,” I tell him, indicating the shirt.
He looks down, then back up, those eyes burning dark. “You want me to just unzip and pull out my dick like the other times? Glory hole style?” He casts a glance around my room. “You want that here ?” And then. “After what just happened out there?”
“I…” I blink, stunned by his crass honesty and a little lost at the sight of his arms, the skin covered in layers and layers of ink. “It’s against the rules.”
He snorts, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You actually want…” He lets out a frustrated grunt.
“Want what?”
“ Shitty sex?”
It’s all I can do to keep my jaw from dropping. Shitty? There was nothing shitty about what we did in that hotel, no matter how hard I tried. I’ve thought about him— this —every minute of every day since the first time we did it. Actually, since he first mentioned the prospect. Since then, it’s only gotten worse.
“Was it…was it bad for you?” I whisper, against every ounce of good judgment I have. My mouth is dry suddenly and my head’s sort of light and weird like the one time I passed out in my twenties. Shaken, I take two stumbling steps over to my bed and sit, let my head fall into my hands. “I…I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intention.”
I should have known, though. Clark was obviously so unsatisfied with me that he had to go and get a younger model.
“Hey.” His weight sinks onto the bed beside me, forcing me to lean into him. When he pulls me in against his side, I can’t help the way my entire body loosens at the contact. The smell. The warmth and physical closeness. “Come here.”
His other arm wraps around me and he drags me up onto his lap sideways. After a second’s resistance, my head drops to his chest, and he tightens his hold and it feels amazing.
More than amazing. This closeness feels somehow necessary, like air or water.
Oh, god, I’ve missed it so much.
Hugging. That’s all we’re doing. I think I might cry.
Oh, dammit, here it comes. My eyes are leaking and this isn’t what this is supposed to be about. None of it. Not the closeness, not the sexiness, the attraction.
The humanity .
I want a turkey baster, dammit. A Petri dish. I want black and white images on a screen and lab coats, not this warm, close feeling of being with a person. Of needing. Belonging.
The fact that it’s a farce—him and me and any semblance of belonging, just makes the tears prickle more painfully in my sinuses, press harder to the backs of my eyes.
“Hey. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” He tightens his hold and I burrow deeper and it’s so freaking wonderful to feel this way, if only for a few moments, that I give in and let it wash over me. “ It was so fucking good, Kit .” The words may be whispered, but that doesn’t lessen their effect. You can cover your ears against a shout, but a whisper? It slides in, sinuous and silent, through pores, up spines, along nerves. It’s a million times more undeniable than screaming.
I’m compelled to hear his words, the way I had to accept his quiet destruction of me in my hallway.
He’s a master of whispered words and small movements. His Trojan horse ways get him inside my shellshocked walls before he obliterates everything with the battering ram trifecta of dirty talk and orgasms and telling me what a good girl I am.
His head drops to the top of mine. He hums against me and that’s more comforting than any sound I’ve heard in ages. We sit here and breathe. I pull back a little and feel the heat of his exhalations against my cheek, my ear. I really, really want him to kiss me.
But I can’t go back on that. Kissing is the one thing that would break me open right now. Turn me inside out. And, honestly, my insides aren’t something I need to give anyone a close look at.
Then again, look at me. Already broken. Already wishing I’d said no and wishing I weren’t doing this at all and also, if I’m being fully honest, a tiny itty bitty bit of me wishes that this were something else. Something it’s absolutely not and truly shouldn’t be. Not with who he is and who I am and—hell, he’s not just my brother’s long-time friend, he’s my employee, for goodness’ sake.
For now, but still.
I draw in a last, shaky breath and force myself to look up at him. What I see makes me want to hide my face again. Instead, I make myself absorb it.
His expression is worried, possibly, but that’s not the thing that bowls me over. It’s the intensity of it. The…the…the craving I see there.
Unless I’m misinterpreting.
I probably am.
“Sure you don’t want that kiss?” he whispers and, the fact is, I do. I really, really want it.