Ramses…
Like a summon through the air, extended limbs hung heavily around my waist, hitching me back toward a solid chest. My feet actually escaped the floor a little.
“I could get used to you standing around in an empty kitchen saying my name.” His teeth pinched my earlobe into his mouth, his body moist and thick with heat. He didn’t have a shirt on.
Christ in heaven.
He also smelled like my body wash and rather harshly of male, his limbs so long he’d not only been able to pull his arms completely around me but lock his hands on his biceps above my hips. He backed me up, completely hard in his boxers, trousers, or whatever he wore behind me. He chuckled. “You summoned?”
I hadn’t meant to say his name out loud, but now that he was here, I found myself hard-pressed not to want his arms around me, not to want him. He made me feel so good, something he knew as his hands slid down my thighs.
“Bri?”
Wake up, be present. Be in the now and unfortunately, I wasn’t so good at listening to myself.
Getting a firm hold, I unlocked his arms from around me, then went stupid a little at the sight of him, a well over six-foot-five male in nothing but his trousers and feet bare on my kitchen tiles. His abs pulled solid and ridged under his tanned skin, his curls wet and sweeping above his dark eyebrows. He wasn’t one of those guys who had curly hair and didn’t know what to do with it. No, he made it work for him, his quirky waves clipped a little shorter on the sides and with the natural sweep, glided out in a perfectly barbered sway across his brow. This guy was incredibly handsome, his body immaculate, but I think what appealed the most about him was he didn’t take every opportunity he could to flaunt the way he looked. I mean, obviously he knew he was good-looking, took pride in his appearance, and though he flashed me that cockiness from time to time, I noticed he leaned harder into his sense of humor and charm. He had charisma, liked to smile.
Liked to make me smile.
He reached for my hands, making me dance in my kitchen. He made it easy to forget what I stumbled upon finding him doing, making a call and clearly keeping it from me.
“You said food?” He locked his junk against me, freaking hell, and how I really shouldn’t be considering tossing breakfast off to the side and allowing him to give me a morning fuck on my granite countertops. I was ridiculously sore, and considering I hadn’t had sex since my divorce a year ago, I needed to give the space between my legs a rest.
Try telling her that, my inner walls actually vibrating at the prospect. I let him kiss me once before the rumble I audibly heard emanating from beneath his tight abs got us both to come to our senses and laugh a little. I was hungry too and decided to serve him first.
Getting things together around the kitchen, I found myself hard-pressed to do the job, Ramses pinching at my robe whenever I placed something to eat or drink in front of him. Eventually, I managed to fill his plate and his teasing definitely lightened the mood on my end.
“You sleep okay?” he asked me, funneling biscuits and gravy into his mouth like a vacuum. Really, to be young and able to do that.
Oh, don’t do that.
Okay, so he was young, his twenties but being twenty-six or whatever he probably was really wasn’t that big of a deal. It wasn’t like I was forty, fifty, or more, and even if I was, so what? My prerogative, and in any sense, I was getting ahead of myself. We’d only slept together, all this casual.
I gave him his second helping before reaching for a plate to make mine. “Good, you?”
“Have you slept in your bed?” A wink before he devoured more food. “Slept with you in your bed?”
“Only every night.” I winked now, being cheeky, which was something I never did. Clearly, this Midwestern boy was doing something for me, but I noticed the fact he didn’t mention his secret call from before, nor address the sound of his phone buzzing right next to him via his seat at my kitchen island. He’d apparently taken his phone with him into the kitchen when he came in, glancing at it before going back to his food. He didn’t answer the text or call, but he didn’t address it either.
“I could be about that visual,” he said, his leg extending out, his naked toes getting me. I started to laugh, but then the phone buzzed and he looked at it again before waving a hand and pocketing it.
“Everything okay?” My way to see if he’d bring it up, not my business but I didn’t know how I felt that he was being all secretive. I mean, he had taken a call in my bathroom.
He lifted fingers. “It’s fine. December, the bride, just lost her house key. I was trying to tell her how to get into my condo to get her spare.”
My mouth parted. Like a serious drop, which he didn’t notice because the phone came out and he raised it to the air.
He smiled. “Looks like she got it okay so the texts should stop. I guess she stopped by the house to drop the wedding gifts off before boarding a plane today for the honeymoon.”
Back into his pocket, back into his food like what he said was normal and maybe, it was. But… “You have a key to her place?”
He nodded, completely casual about it. “Yeah, she’s my neighbor. I bought a condo and didn’t need both spaces, so I rented the other side out to her. It’s basically a duplex set up so, yeah. Tried to help her out. The place she was in—”
“With her husband.” I tried to sound casual about it, but noticed I placed my back to him when I turned around. I put the gravy back on the burner.
“Yeah, with Prinze.” I turned, and he was sitting there, staring at me with a wrinkled brow. He frowned. “Plumbing went out in their old place. They’re renting from me.”
And so, she was effectively and intricately weaved within his life.
Wow.
I, well, had more than enough of my own drama, more than enough of my own shit but this.
“Brielle?”
My head shot up to find his fingers pinching at my robe again, his reach that long. He cleared me from the burner, hugging my hips. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I passed that off, way off but wow. Wow. I shook my head. “Yeah.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.” His look curious before his eyes danced at me. “You lying to me?”
“No.”
Curious again before he chuckled and pinched my chin, tipping it down. “Okay, play your games, Jersey girl,” he paused, but then, smoothed his hands over my hips, cupping my ass. “But after you’re done doing all that, how about we play some together? Finish breakfast and get back to where we were.”
Back to all this he meant, his hands massaging my hips and making me feel good. His hands distracting me and clearly avoiding literally everything else. His business was his and maybe it wasn’t drama. Maybe he was okay with being so close to someone who had such a firm hold over his life in the past. I really didn’t know his dynamic, but I did know what last night was for both of us.
It’d been avoidance.
It’d been giving in to pleasure and passion, so we didn’t have to address other things clearly in the room here. It’d been fun for a night true, but long term?
I unknotted his arms from around me once more but this time he stood and cradled my elbows when I placed my back to him.
“What’s up?” His chin touched down on the top of my head. Like I was his bite-sized kid when really, our age difference favored in my direction. It wasn’t a big deal he was in his twenties but being older did give me a perspective he didn’t have. It let me see things he didn’t see, even easier when it wasn’t your own life. I couldn’t handle my own crap for anything, a big reason why last night even happened.