Chapter Fourteen #3
“Be my guest, Ms. Not In Charge.” He bent to scoop up her discarded panties. “Here, take these with you.”
She took them, rolling her eyes, then turned to walk toward the stairs.
“Uh, Bay?”
She kept walking. “Yes?”
“You know your dress is still up around your waist, right?”
“Yes.” She paused at the turn for the stairs, legs apart, and arched her back so he’d be sure to get a good look. “But if I’m going to suffer, so are you.”
He cleared his throat, but his voice was still rough when he said, “Touché.”
And with a low laugh and a gotcha smirk, she stepped out of view and escaped up the stairs.
She didn’t come back.
He waited, putting away the food and tidying up the kitchen, turning on the TV and scrolling through the streaming options while listening for her footfalls on the creaky stairs.
But the stairs stayed silent, and when night fell and the house grew dark, he shut down the house and went to bed, where sexual frustration and the nagging worry that he might have gone too far kept him awake far into the night.
When he’d issued his no-orgasm edict, he’d half expected her to tell him to go fuck himself.
Hell, he’d all but seen the words trembling on her lips.
And when he’d told her the only way she was going to get to come between now and next Sunday was to do it right there, in front of him, he’d been prepared to duck to avoid taking a flying beer bottle to the face.
Instead she’d met the challenge head on, and the beauty of her unabashed, unashamed sexuality had left him breathless.
And her vulnerability had left him shattered.
Oh, she’d put on a brave face once the orgasm was over, but he’d seen the fragile uncertainty lurking under the sass and snark.
He’d wanted to cuddle her, to kiss her soft, damp cheeks and stroke her disheveled hair and reassure her that she’d been perfect, that she was perfect.
That in his eyes, she would always be perfect.
But she wasn’t ready to hear that, and he wasn’t quite ready to say it.
Now, after a restless night, he wished he’d had the courage.
Groggy from lack of sleep, irritated by the hard-on that hadn’t gone away despite stroking it out twice during the night, he thought about canceling his Sunday morning plans for a bike ride with friends.
But she would probably appreciate having the house to herself for a few hours, and he needed the exercise.
Maybe it would finally make his dick go down. If it did, he was going to be putting in a lot of miles on the bike this week.
When he got back, tired and sweaty but no less horny, her car was gone, and the house held the still quiet of emptiness.
He didn’t expect a note—she was a grown woman, and he had no claim on her time—but was still disappointed when he didn’t find one. Shoving it aside, he headed for the shower.
While he soaped and scrubbed and resolutely ignored his hopeful dick, he went over his plans for the week.
The goal was to keep Bailey on edge, needy and wanting, without messing with her daily life.
She had a business to run, and interfering with that would put him squarely on her shit list, so he had to be careful there.
Any tormenting would have to take place after business hours, but that wasn’t a problem.
The ideas he had were best implemented when there was no one else around, anyway.
Satisfied with the plan, he finished showering and toweled off, then headed to his bedroom to dress.
He walked in on his phone buzzing on the bed where he’d tossed it, and picked it up.
He’d missed a call from Sawyer, and a follow up text asking him to return the call, no rush, and there was a message from Bailey. It was a simple, one-line text telling him she was hanging out with Chloe and Gwen, but his heart gave a wild leap of joy.
She’d left a note after all.
With a goofy, giddy grin on his face, he crossed to the dresser for clean clothes.
He was down to a couple of T-shirts and one pair of shorts, reminding him that he needed to do laundry.
So when he was dressed, he tucked his phone into his pocket then picked up the hamper in the corner and dragged it to the laundry room.
He got the first load going, then wandered into the kitchen. The coffee pot was cold and empty—Bailey must have decided to get some on the road, or at Chloe’s—so he set it to brewing, then took out his phone.
He stared at Bailey’s text for a moment, weighing his options. It didn’t exactly invite a reply, but he wanted to send something, to keep that communication going. A thought hit him, and with a grin he tapped out his reply.
Then to avoid staring at the screen, waiting for an answer, he toggled away from his texts and returned Sawyer’s call.
“Nash, thanks for getting back to me.”
The coffee pot gave its little chime to indicate brewing was done, so Nash put the phone on speaker and pulled down a mug. “No problem.”
“This a good time to talk?”
Nash took his phone and his coffee into the living room, sat down on the couch, and put his feet up on the coffee table. “Absolutely. What can I do for you?”