Chapter Seven #6
Her eyes dipped down. “Huh. Look at that.”
“You did this on purpose,” he accused.
“I swear I didn’t,” she vowed. “Hey, it’s making me horny too.”
He’d noticed. Her nipples were all but stabbing through her tank top, and somewhere around the half-hour mark, she’d started squirming, crossing and uncrossing her legs and shifting in her seat, and it was even more distracting than the action on screen.
“Serves you right,” he muttered. “Well?”
“Well, what?”
“Play the next episode.”
She blinked. “You want to watch more?”
“I’m fucking invested now,” he told her. “I have to see if these two dummies are going to figure out their shit and live happily ever after.”
“It’s based on a romance novel,” she told him, her expression delighted. “The HEA is guaranteed.”
“Oh. Well, I still want to see it.” He waved a hand at the screen. “Go.”
They got through episode two, which was somehow even hornier than the first one, and he waved the white flag.
“That’s it, I can’t take anymore,” he declared as the credits rolled. “If you’re going to keep watching, I’m going to bed.”
“I have to go to bed, too.” Bailey turned off the TV, then stood and reached her arms above her head. “I’ve got a full day again tomorrow.”
“Hopefully minus the emergency,” he said, watching her stretch and suffering the torments of the damned—and horny. Her shirt rode up to expose more of her belly, smooth and round and bitable, and her nipples were still jutting through her shirt like pencil erasers.
“Hopefully,” she agreed and dropped her arms, snapping him out of his belly-nibbling-fantasies. “Speaking of which, you could use a trim.”
He automatically lifted his head to his hair. “Yeah, I know. I keep meaning to get one, but well, one thing and another.”
“I’ll check the books at the salon, see when I can work you in.”
Nash dropped his hand. She’d worked in a salon part time when they were in school, and had trimmed his hair regularly, often turning the simple grooming chore into extended foreplay that usually led to frenzied fucking. “Ah, thanks, but you don’t have to.”
“I don’t mind.” She picked up her plate and empty beer bottle from the coffee table. “Though just so we’re clear, I mean just a haircut.”
“I figured,” he said, rising as she walked into the kitchen. He had to pause and adjust his jeans. “Since, you know, we’re not having sex anymore.”
“Not until the gang bang, anyway.” She set her plate in the sink with a grimace. “That phrase is starting to annoy me. It’s so porny.”
He handed her his empty beer bottle so she could add it to the recycling bin under the sink with hers, then pulled a freezer bag from a drawer. “It does conjure up a certain image, doesn’t it?” he said, handing her the bag.
She took it and went back to the pizza. “I need to find another one.”
“How about ‘group project’?”
She snorted out a laugh. “Okay, that’s a good one.”
“I can’t take credit,” he said, watching her load the pizza into the freezer bag. When the box was empty, he picked it up and added it to the recycling. “Jesse came up with it.”
She turned from the open fridge. “When did you talk to Jesse?”
“He was at The Wild Orchid when I went in at lunch yesterday to talk to Chloe.” He saw the look on her face. “I didn’t tell him about it, he already knew.”
“No, it’s not that.” She put the bag of pizza in the fridge and closed the door. “I don’t care if he knows, and I figured Chloe would mention it to him and Knox.”
“Okay, then why do you look like you swallowed a fish?”
She jerked her shoulders in a shrug. “I guess I just didn’t expect you to reach out to Chloe so fast.”
“I told you I was going to ask her for Sawyer’s information.”
“I know, but…” She trailed off, then shook her head. “Never mind. Did she give it to you?”
“No, but Jesse took mine to pass on to him. He’ll reach out if he’s interested.”
“Oh, okay.”
“You sure you’re okay?” he queried. He couldn’t quite read the look on her face.
“Yeah, fine.” She smiled, but her eyes didn’t meet his. “I’m going to go to bed. You’ll lock up?”
“Sure.” He tried meeting her gaze, but she turned away. “Good night, Bay.”
“Night,” she echoed without turning around, and walked out of the kitchen.
Frowning, he went through the house, turning off lights and locking the doors.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs for a moment, listening to her move around—the creak of floorboards, the running of water.
He hadn’t been upstairs yet—though it had been tempting to explore while she was out of the house, he’d resisted—so didn’t know what her space up there looked like.
Still, he could imagine it well enough. She’d still have the brass bed that had lived in her bedroom at home during college, the bars gleaming dully in the light of the lamp in the shape of a mermaid—another favorite from her childhood bedroom.
The bedding was harder to picture, but it would be colorful.
Bailey had never understood the appeal of white sheets, and he’d once teased her that if she could see herself spread out on them, getting fucked, she’d feel different.
She’d have the dresser that had belonged to her grandmother, a colorful rug on the floor. Blackout curtains on the window, so she could sleep in on her days off, and art on the walls.
Resisting the urge to climb those stairs was almost a physical hurt, so he turned away from temptation and went to his own bedroom. Though he preferred sleeping with the door open, he shut it, a physical barrier to keep him from giving into that hurt.
He shucked off his clothes, tossed them at the corner he’d designated for laundry waiting to be done, and crawled into bed in his boxers. Lying in the cool, quiet dark, with the faint hum of the air conditioning the only noise, he willed himself to sleep.