Chapter 14
I heard the thumping while I was still in the adjoining bathroom. Not the slow creak of an old house settling or the low rustle of the ocean breeze outside.
No—this was deliberate. Repetitive. Rhythmic.
Thump.
Thump.
Creak.
Thump.
And I swear to God, for ten full seconds, I thought Fitz and Sloane were going at it like animals on the other side of the wall. Heat bloomed under my skin, my pulse racing. But as I stepped back into the bedroom, I realized it wasn’t them.
Thatcher had spun himself like a rotisserie chicken, now sitting at the foot of the bed with his legs extended toward the headboard, his bare feet planted right on my pillow. “What the fuck —” I hissed to myself. And then I yelped loudly, “Thatcher!”
He grunted, entirely comfortable with this arrangement, his toes flexing toward the headboard like he was mid-Olympic dive.
“I’ve got this kink in my back,” he explained, rubbing the spot under his shoulder blade with a wince.
“You start seated, back straight, toes extended to the anchor point—then lunge and grab. It lengthens the spine.”
And then he lunged . His hands slapped the headboard with unnecessary force. His legs tensed. His spine flexed. And the headboard slammed into the wall.
Thump.
Creak.
Thump.
“Thatcher, get your dirty feet off my pillow,” I snapped, shoving at his calves.
“I’m realigning my posture,” he said earnestly, yanking himself forward again like a gymnast preparing for a vault.
“Your posture can realign without putting your heels where my face goes.”
He sighed, muttered something about “somatic spinal therapy,” and finally flopped onto his side like a man freshly enlightened. Within minutes he was asleep, breathing deep, utterly relaxed.
And in the room next door?
Silence. For a second.
Then Fitz. Fucking loudly. The kind of fucking that rattled the picture frames. The kind of fucking that sounded like it came with consequences.
I buried my head in the sheets.
B y the time I crept downstairs—starving, simmering, wearing nothing but one of Jack’s old oversized t-shirts that hit just below my ass—I’d made peace with the fact that the house was cursed. A cursed house full of cursed men doing cursed things to irritate the fuck out of me.
I opened the fridge. The light poured over me, cool and clinical. I pawed through a half-eaten fruit tart, an unopened bottle of rosé, someone’s regrettable tofu scramble leftovers—and then his voice cut through the quiet behind me.
“Hungry?”
I jumped. Fitz stood barefoot on the tile, shirtless, his goddamn gray sweatpants hanging low. He looked rumpled and smug and completely undisturbed by the fact that I might bludgeon him with a bottle of wine.
“Jesus, Fitz. You goddamn sneak.”
He smirked, stepping toward the counter. “I didn’t want to wake the whole house.”
“Oh, really? Now you’re being considerate of the house?,” I said with scathing bitterness in my tone. “Didn’t sound like you minded keeping the whole house up a few minutes ago when you were, you know fucking the headboard into the drywall. ”
He turned, lazy, eyes dragging over me like a slow tide. “I could say the same to you.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You started it. I heard you through the wall,” he said, picking up his bourbon glass. “Loud.”
“ Loud? ” I stared at him, incredulous. “You heard Thatcher doing yoga. ”
“Yoga. Right.” He turned and gave me a withering look as he rolled his eyes in disbelief.
I held up my hands, exasperated. “He was sitting backward on the bed with his feet on my pillow. Toes pointed toward the headboard. Apparently, he has to ‘anchor his stretch’ by lunging and grabbing the headboard with both hands. Repeatedly.”
Fitz choked on his sip of bourbon.
“Dead serious,” I said. “‘Spinal decompression,’ he says. ‘Realigning his energy.’” I used air quotes to emphasize my mockery of the ridiculousness of it all. “He probably saw it on TikTok. He slammed his arms into the wall three times and called it a win. I nearly committed murder.”
Fitz was laughing now, shaking his head.
“And you thought I was getting railed,” I said flatly. “Meanwhile, my pillow had his feet on it.”
He leaned against the counter, staring at me like I’d made his whole week.
“Shut the fuck up,” he said again, and this time it wasn’t in disbelief.
He was downright delighted by the mental imagery—and maybe the realization that he had it all wrong.
He had, in fact, not heard me enthusiastically fucking another man.
And in the quiet that followed, with the fridge still humming and my shirt barely covering my thighs, I looked at him. And he looked back. And of course, he looked calm. Smug. Smirking. Like he hadn’t just shattered my sanity through a fucking wall.
“So glad you got a good fuck in,” I snapped, biting off every word. “I’ve just got a drunk, snoring dude passed out in my bed, a pillow that had his dirty feet on it, and an earful of sounds I can’t unhear.”
Fitz didn’t flinch. He just cocked his head, took a sip from his glass, and let the silence stretch. Then finally, he added, “An okay fuck.”
My eyes rolled and I crunched my nose up at his lie. “Oh, please. I heard you. Every bit of it. Very enthusiastic. 5 stars on Yelp.”
He shrugged, that maddening, lazy shrug like none of this was that serious. “Since I was the one having the sex, I think my rating of it would matter more than yours. And I’m a bit more discerning with what I’d call good. ”
I should’ve walked away. But instead, I grabbed his glass from the counter where it sat between us. He watched as I took a long, slow sip of his bourbon—because I didn’t give a fuck—and looked him straight in the eye. The ice in the glass clinked as I lowered it.
“It sounded to me like you were trying to prove something.”
His jaw ticked. Just barely. I stepped closer. One step. Two. The hum of the fridge was deafening.
“You trying to drown something out, Whitmore?” I asked, voice quieter now.
He ignored my taunt with one of his own. “ You listened,” he murmured, stepping closer.
I opened my mouth. Closed it. And I knew color bloomed high on my cheeks. But I lifted the bourbon glass between us once more, took the last swallow without breaking eye contact, and then leaned in just enough for my voice to land right against his throat.
“And you’re still hard for the wrong woman.”