And now I’m imagining the two boys Grace showed me picture after smiling, innocent picture of going after each other. When I finally stop laughing, Wade’s eyes are still on me.
And I like it. I like the way he smiles at me and the way he laughs with me and the way he looks at me like he likes me.
Tracing a square in the pattern of the bedspread, I put my thoughts back on track. “Okay, so dirty fighter aside. What reason would Walt have to come after you?”
“I might have helped Janie’s mom out with the entertainment.”
My jaw drops. “You hired Officer Dwayne DeLong-Johnson? That is the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. But it definitely makes more sense than Mrs. Hamilton scouring the exotic dancer listings on her own. FYI, she couldn’t stop giggling the entire time he was there. Her face was tomato red, but she was delighted.”
Pushing off the desk, that hooked grin in place, he heads for the bathroom. “Nice. I’m glad Janie had a good time.”
He leaves the door open and turns on the sink, so I follow him back and prop a shoulder in the doorway. “Janie did too, but I was talking about her mom. And yours.”
Rocking back on his heels, he cackles. “Tell me there are pictures.”
“Oh, there are pictures, all right. I’m pretty sure Janie has video too. Play your cards right, and maybe she’ll share them.”
Still grinning, he runs a washcloth under the tap, soaping it up before he goes after the lipstick marring his jaw and forehead.
Catching sight of a few pink smears he probably can’t see, I step into the room, take another washcloth from the rack, and reach around Wade to get it wet. After the last two days, I’ve gotten so used to intentionally touching when we have an audience, I don’t even think about the fact that my hand is pressed to the bare skin of his side until I look up and find him watching me in the mirror.
“Sorry,” I breathe out, pulling my hand free. Suddenly, the laughter is gone, leaving only the awareness of how small this room is and how close we’re standing.
“There’s some on your neck and back too… If you want me to get them.”
He nods, and I try to focus on wiping away the evidence of some other woman on him, but my gaze keeps slipping back to the mirror. To the too-blue eyes still watching mine, impossible to read.
I want to say something. Break the silence. But that easy conversation between us feels further out of reach as the seconds stretch.
“There, you’re all cleaned up,” I finally manage, still clutching the washcloth.
Wade turns, his big body swallowing up the space in the small bathroom in a way it hadn’t when his back was turned. He reaches for a bit of my hair like he did at the gas station—God, was that only yesterday?—and wraps it around his finger before smoothing it back over my ear.
The air feels thin, warm.
His knuckles graze that sensitive skin along my neck.
Forget thin. The air is gone.
Or maybe I’m just holding my breath. His brows pull forward, those blue-sky eyes turning midnight as they track the path his fingers just followed, then slowly shift back to mine.
Something cold splatters against the top of my foot, shocking the air back into my lungs on a gasp.
I’m clutching the wet cloth in my hands hard enough to wring the liquid from it.
When I look back to Wade, whatever I thought I saw is gone and all that’s left is the easy smile.
He takes the washcloth from me, setting it at the back of the sink. Then wrapping his hands around my shoulders in a gentle hold, he guides me backward until I’m outside the bathroom. “Thanks for getting the lipstick off. Hit the sack and I’ll try to be quiet when I’m done showering.”
And then he closes the door.
Chapter 10
Wade
It’s the crack of dawn and I can’t stop thinking about Harlow. About standing in that bathroom last night with her fingertips burning into the bare skin of my side and those deep brown eyes peering up into mine.
Good thing she turned away when she did, because I was about to do something epically stupid. And I don’t want to be that guy for her.
I want to be a good guy. Not the jerk who convinced her to help me out, only to pay her back by putting moves on her two days into a ten-day favor.
Thing is, it would be a hell of a lot easier to be good if every now and then she didn’t look like she might be thinking something bad.
Keyword there being might. As in, also might not.
Outside of this week, I’m not a guy who holds back, waiting to see how things play out. I’m a guy who goes after what I want.
The girl, the game, the puck. Whatever it is. I don’t mess around.
If Harlow had been giving me those eyes under any circumstances other than these, I would have had my mouth on hers within a blink. I would have—
Nope.
I’m not going to be the douche lying here getting hard thinking about her mouth and all the ways I want to play with it. What those lush lips might taste like. How soft and sweet they’d be parting beneath mine. What it would be like wrapping my hand in the thick silk of her hair and backing her up to the bathroom wall—no, the shower wall—while foamy soap slips between us, trailing over her tits and down to her—
Fuck! Don’t think about her like that when she’s one freaking Saltine-cracker-thin wall away.
I take a deep breath, concentrating on the three springs grating against my spine, hip, and shoulder instead of shower scenarios that might have been until I think I might be facing a career-ending injury if I don’t move.
I roll to my side, cringing at the screech of the springs beneath me.
And there’s the laugh.
“Sorry ’bout that.”
“I was already awake. Just giving you some extra sleep if you needed it.”
“Nah, I’m set.” Total lie. I could probably use about six more hours. But that’s not happening now. And not just because of the bed.
There’s some rustling from the other side of the wall and then Harlow’s standing in the open arch between our rooms.
Jesus, she’s beautiful. That inky hair falling around her shoulders in sleep-mussed sexiness. Her golden skin and bottomless eyes devoid of any makeup. And those conservative button-down PJs clinging to her curves in a way that has me pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to rub the faint outline of her nipples against the fabric from my mind.
Be the good guy.
“How’d you sleep?” Better than me, I hope. But as I search for any hint of a shadow or bag under her eyes, a shitty part of me might be just a smidge bummed to see that she looks perfectly rested. Like she didn’t lose a wink of sleep thinking about that moment in the bathroom last night.
“Great. In fact, I’m ready to run if you are,” she says with a bounce and a smile. “We don’t have anything scheduled for this morning, do we?”
Another ding to the ego. Sorry, buddy.
“Lunch with Walt and Janie at noon.”
“Plenty of time then. I’ll change first and meet you out front when you’re ready.”
Harlow
I had to get out of that room.
After tossing and turning half the night, staring at the ceiling, staring at the bathroom door, then staring at my phone when I realized staring was all I was going to be able to do—I couldn’t take it another minute.