Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Marcus
I wake up from my after-work nap on the couch to the scent of cardamom and cinnamon thick enough to coat my tongue, and for a second I wonder if I'm dreaming of a spice kitchen.
Then the clanging in the kitchen registers, and I realise someone's baking.
Alexia, if I had to guess. Zachary should be at work, and I can't remember Rhys ever touching the stove since we moved in.
I pad through the house, following the smell, wearing only a pair of shorts.
I'd showered after work, heated up a lasagne I froze last week since no one else was home, and fallen asleep on the couch with my phone on my chest.
As guessed, Alexia's the culprit, messing up my kitchen.
She's at the sink with her back to me, hair knotted up, wearing a long striped shirt over black shorts.
She's scrubbing a mixing bowl, scowling, muttering something about baking being only for masochists.
Flour dusts her cheeks. Measuring spoons and cups are strewn across the bench.
I'm not sure how one person made such a mess.
I lean against the doorframe and watch her work, moving things from bench to sink and back again, somehow making an even bigger mess.
I should go help. But then I'd have to stop watching her move that body around.
"Stop staring. It's creepy," she says, without looking up from the sink.
I chuckle. "How do you know I'm staring?"
"Well, aren't you?" She finally looks up, and I can't hold in the laugh at the blob of dough hanging in her hair.
"What?" she scowls.
I walk over, grabbing bowls as I go. "I wasn't staring. I was intently checking whether you'd gotten more flour in your hair or in your banana bread."
Her eyes narrow, and she reaches up to pat her head, only managing to replace the flour with detergent bubbles. "How do you know it's banana bread?"
"I have a nose, and it works. And you forget, I practically grew up in your house."
She sighs and stacks up some dirty dishes, bringing them over. "I hope it's okay."
"I'm sure it will be." I rinse what she's scrubbed and put it on the rack. "How was work today?"
"Fine." She grabs a tea towel and starts drying. "Good, actually. Had a good chat with a couple of people from the department after my seminar." She laughs once, but doesn't elaborate.
"You gonna share with the class?"
"It's nothing. Just something Craig said when I said something stupid. He covered for me." She catches my face. "What?"
"Nothing."
"You're making an ugly," she says, pointing at my face.
"Cra-aig," I say, mocking. "You sure mention him a lot."
"He's a colleague, Marcus. Colleagues come up in conversation about work. Shocking, I know."
"Sure. Just looking out for you, as requested."
She twists the towel in her hands. "Well, stop it. I didn't think I'd be fielding questions about my life from three extra brother figures when I moved in."
I clear my throat. "What if I hate Craig, not as a big brother, but as someone who doesn't want a bloke like Craig anywhere near you."
That gets her attention. "Someone like Craig? What is that, exactly? A political scientist? Because unless you've forgotten, I'm also a poli—"
"A fucking man, Lexi."
She doesn't say anything for a second, just watches my hands move under the bubbles.
"Right," she says, eventually. "Well. That's going to make dating hard while I live here."
"Are you intending to date while living here?"
"No concrete plans. But if I do, I hate to break it to you, it'll be with a man. So you better get used to 'blokes like Craig' being of the man variety."
I scrub at the whisk a little too hard and it bends. "I don't think I'll ever get used to you dating."
"Any man?"
"Another man. Any man but me." There. I've said it.
She doesn't say anything, just starts putting away the dry dishes, but I can tell from her face that it's got to her.
Even though I had no right to say it.
I had my chance. And I ruined it, whether on purpose or not.
She doesn't deserve this from me. We move around the kitchen in silence for a while, and even with her deep in her head, I'm enjoying just being there with her.
I missed this — missed her calm presence.
Just as I finish the last of the dishes, she pulls the first loaf pan from the oven and sets it on the pot holder she's laid out on the bench.
It smells good. Almost as good as her.
I reach out to peel off a corner.
She doesn't even look before she slaps my hand away, a flat-palmed smack across the knuckles I feel in my soul.
"Hey! I helped with your dishes!" I pout.
"And I appreciate it. But this isn't for taste-testing."
"One tiny taste. Please!" I beg.
She shakes her head, hand ready in karate-chop position over the loaf. "No."
"What about after you slice it — one sliver, no one will ever know."
"Marcus!"
"I'm wasting away over here, Lexi-Lou!"
She puts her hands on her hips, staring me down. "You had a giant serving of lasagne an hour ago. I washed the container before I washed the other dishes."
I put my hands up. Actual surrender. "Fine. But I want my own loaf sometime. For being such a good dishwasher."
She huffs and turns to check the oven, bending over as I reach for the tea towel, and I end up closer than either of us planned, her hip brushing my front.
Fuck.
She smells like cardamom and brown sugar and butter, and she feels even better. I step back, hands in my pockets, as she clears her throat and fusses with the oven like nothing happened, even though her hitched breath says otherwise.
I’m instantly fucking hard. It’s bad enough trying not to have my body responding to the mere sight of her in my house, but now the feel of her? I’m a mess.
To distract her, I reach for the bowl of frosting on the sideboard.
"Marcus!" She lunges for it.
I hadn't thought this through. I'm holding the bowl over my head, and she reaches across my body to grab it — her whole body pressed against mine.
Her hair flies out of its bun, her shampoo washing over me as my face nearly buries itself in the crook of her neck. I get drunk on a single long inhale of her.
And there’s no way she doesn’t know her affect on my body, on my cock, right now.
"Give me the bowl, Marcus," she demands, no anger in it, just the unmistakable lilt of playfulness.
Standing a good eight inches over her, there's no way she reaches the bowl, even on her tiptoes.
But her disastrous dishwashing has splashed water across the floor, and as she stretches, she slips against me.
My free hand catches her waist, pulling her in as her hands come up around my neck.
"I got you, Lexi." I murmur it against her hair. "You're safe with me."
We freeze.
Her body, soft against me, feels like heaven, and I wonder how long I can stand here like this.
Forever, if it were up to me.
She pulls her face back, arms still around my neck, looking up at me.
"Sorry, I slipped."
"You never have any reason to apologise if you want to press your body against me."
Before I can say anything even more stupid, there's a knock on the door.
She steps back. "Are you expecting someone?"
"Nope. You?"
"Me either." Then her face breaks into a grin. "Race ya!"
We both run for the door. She elbows me in the ribs down the narrow hallway, I clip her shoulder with mine, and somehow we're both laughing by the time we hit the foyer. I'm faster, but she's more nimble — she beats me to the handle by a beat.
She throws the door open, head thrown back in laughter.
Then she stops laughing.
Standing on the porch in what can only be politely described as a suggestion of a mini dress is a woman I have no recollection of inviting here tonight.
"Hey, stranger," Tracey says, looking at me over Alexia's shoulder.
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out. I don't remember making a date with her. Doesn't mean I didn't.
Beside me, Alexia steps back from the door, hand sliding off the handle, brushing flour off her shirt.
"I have to check something in the oven." She's already turning. "I'll leave you two to—"
Shit.
I follow her, forgetting the woman on my porch. "Alexia, hold on."
"Can't. Don't want it to burn." She flings herself down the hallway, but I catch her hand before she gets too far.
"Alexia."
"You should go. Your…friend’s waiting." Still not looking at me. "Wouldn't want to keep her."
"It's not what it looks like."
"I'm pretty sure it's exactly what it looks like, Marcus. It's fine." She pulls her hand away, heading for the oven. "Honestly, there's something almost comforting about it. I needed reminding that some things never change."
That hurts like a knife to the heart. "That's not fair," I say, knowing that it’s actually more than fair.
"Am I wrong?" she counters.
No, she isn't. And I deserved that.
"You'd better go, she's probably getting cold out there."
"Can we talk about—"
"About you telling me you don't like the thought of me dating any other man, but you can date as many women as you like? No, I don't think there's really anything more to say about it, do you?"
I run a hand through my hair and curse. "Look, I have to go deal with Tracey. But this isn't over."
She looks up at me, eyes bright. "I think it is, Marcus."
I sigh and walk out of the kitchen.
Tracey's already inside by the time I get back, already walking toward my room, reaching for the zip at her side, the dress sliding an inch, then two, off one shoulder.
I watch her go and feel nothing. Not a flicker. Only the burning regret that the only woman I want to watch undress is one on the other side of this wall, the one who doesn't even know she's it.