10. Callum #2
That is so far from the fucking problem right now, I think, my blood boiling for an entirely different reason. The problem is that my body is currently reacting like a starved teenager’s, completely ignoring the fact that I am a grown-ass man standing in a woman’s living room.
She steps closer to me—close enough that I can smell the sweet honey on her breath. She looks right into my eyes, takes another bite of the pastry, and moans so loud it practically bounces off the exposed brick.
“Oh, Callum!” she yells at the top of her lungs, throwing her head back toward the ceiling so the entire building can hear. “Callum, oh my god!!”
“Winifred, shut up,” I bite out, stepping back an inch, but my jaw is locked so tight it aches. “I’m serious. Stop.”
She doesn’t stop. If anything, the dark, dangerous gleam of mischief in her eyes only gets brighter.
She takes another step forward, closing the distance between us until the toe of her boot bumps against mine.
She tilts her head up, her lips slick with some kind of gloss but dusted with a faint coat of sugar, and leans in until her breath brushes the shell of my ear.
“You’re doing so good, baby,” she murmurs in a whisper that skitters straight down my spine. “Just like that. Right there.”
“You’re a damn menace, you know that?” I growl, trying to hold her gaze with a glare that’s supposed to be lethal, but my voice sounds rougher than I want it to. “I mean it, knock it off.”
She bursts into a fit of maniacal laughter, completely delighted with herself—and then it happens. My body completely betrays me. Her raspy, sexy voice in my ear, and the sheer absurdity of the moment push me entirely over the edge and I cum right in my jeans.
“Shit!” I shout out loud. My hand instinctively flies down, clapping firmly over the front of my jeans to hold the denim away from my body before she can see the evidence. This hasn’t happened to me since I was fourteen years old.
Winifred’s maniacal laughter cuts off instantly. She freezes, Her eyes drop down to my hand, then fly back up to my face, wide as saucers. “Did you just—?”
“Yes,” I snap, narrowing my eyes at her. “Where is your fucking bathroom?”
Winifred slaps both hands over her mouth, her shoulders shaking as a squeaky, suffocated sound escapes her throat. She points a trembling finger down the hall.
“On the left,” she wheezes out, fighting for her life not to burst into tears of laughter, “past the closet.”
I duck around the corner, shove the bathroom door shut behind me, and hit the lock with a frantic slap of my palm. Leaning my head against the wood, I let out a ragged breath, staring down at my jeans.
Bloody hell. It’s worse than I thought. Much worse.
Fuck my fucking life.
I stare at the porcelain sink, the faded floral bathmat, the little bottle of peach hand soap—anything except the utter disaster currently happening below my belt.
I close my eyes, drag a hand down my face, and try to process how thirty seconds of a girl moaning over a pastry has completely wrecked my dignity.
It’s not like I’m blind. Anyone with two eyes and half a brain cell could tell Winifred is stunning.
A devastating type of beauty that looks like it could eat you alive and pick its teeth with the bones.
But I’ve seen many pretty women before. I’ve worked with them, passed them on the street, existed around them my entire adult life without my pulse so much as spiking.
I’ve always been in control. Level-headed.
Completely immune to the foolishness that turns other guys into stammering idiots.
Yet here I am, practically hyperventilating in a bathroom because she took one bite of a tart.
I’ve never reacted to a woman like this. It’s a total, humiliating first—this terrifying pull that makes me feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff with someone pressing a hand to my lower back. She didn’t even touch me, and my body is acting like she just laid complete claim to it.
With a defeated sigh, I turn toward the door and raise my voice just enough to carry through the thin wood. “Winifred?”
A wobbly voice answers from down the hall. “Yeah?”
I can hear the tremor in her tone, the effort it’s taking her not to explode into hysterical laughter. Under completely different circumstances, I’d probably find it funny, too.
“This is, um, worse than I thought,” I say, resting my forehead against the paneling. “Do you…do you have a washer and dryer up here?”
A beat of complete silence passes.
“Wait,” she squeaks out. “Are you serious?”
“No, Winifred,” I snap, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m lying through my teeth just for shits and giggles.”
“Christ,” she mutters, her footsteps shuffling closer until I hear her stop right outside the door. “Yeah, I have a stackable unit in the utility closet near the kitchen, but…”
Her voice trails off, and my eyes snap open. “But what?”
“Well…what exactly are you going to wear while they’re in the wash?
” she asks, a fresh wave of amusement lacing her words.
“Because no offense, McKinley, but I barely know you. It’s a personal rule of mine that I have to know a guy for at least two weeks before he’s allowed to walk around my living room butt-ass naked. ”
Despite the burning humiliation currently consuming my soul, an involuntary huff of a laugh escapes my nose. How? How the hell do I find this woman so insufferably frustrating and yet so ridiculously funny at the exact same time? It’s a cruel, twisted joke.
“I don’t know!” I say, leaning my weight against the frame. “You’re going to have to find me something. Anything. Help me!”
“Callum, look at you, then look at me,” she says through the door. “What on earth makes you think I have a single piece of clothing in this apartment that could possibly fit a six-foot-something man?”
“Winifred,” I say, dropping my tone into the most patient voice I can muster. “Please. Find me something.”
“You know, this is really on you,” she says, her voice drifting as she wanders toward what I’m assuming is the hall closet. “If you had an ounce of self-control, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“My self-control is fine! It’s your fault for being all…seductive or whatever you were trying to do.”
A beat passes before she bursts out laughing on the other side. “Seductive? You think me shoving a Cinder-Puff into my mouth like a feral raccoon was my attempt at seduction?”
“You didn’t just eat it! You made a whole scene out of it and you know it.”
“I was eating a pastry,” she says, clearly delighted. “God, I’d hate to see what would happen to you if I was actually trying to seduce you. You’d probably pass out.”
I close my eyes and drag a hand down my face. This couldn’t get more humiliating. “You’re not being helpful in the slightest right now. Pants, Winifred. Pants!”
She lets out a long sigh. “Fine, fine! Let me check the closet in my room. I think I might have an old pair of my brother’s sweatpants from when he stayed over last.”
Relief washes over me, heavy and sweet. “Thank god.”
I wait in the bathroom, listening to the sound of closet doors sliding on their metal tracks and hangers rustling. A minute later, a light knock sounds on the wood.
“Brace yourself,” she warns. The door opens just a crack and a worn bundle of gray fabric gets shoved through the gap. I grab it quickly, and the door snaps shut again.
I unfold the gray sweatpants, staring at them in silence, then groan, rubbing the bridge of my nose.
These are not going to fit me.
“Good luck!” she calls out cheerfully from the hallway, her footsteps quickly retreating toward the living room.
I pull off my boots and slide out of my ruined jeans and briefs, bracing myself before stepping into the sweatpants. I pull them up over my thighs, hauling them up to my waist with a quiet grunt.
I look down.
Fuck me.
The pants stop roughly four or five inches above my ankles, riding high up my calves like flood pants, and they are so absurdly, skin-tight through my thighs and ass that I’m fairly certain one deep squat will rip the back seam wide open.
Winifred’s going to have a fucking field day with this.