“Oh, I’m certain he’s had a thing for you for years.”
“Really?” I rolled my eyes at myself because I already knew that he had, and asking him to expound on that was more desperate than humble, but also I was kind of desperate. Desperate for validation that what I was thinking wasn’t completely crazy.
But this was Nolan, my brother-in-law, and we were close. I didn’t need to be dodgy. “Okay, I knew he probably did. So do I…? Do we…? What do we do now?”
Nolan laughed, and though I doubted he was trying to be patronizing, I did feel a bit of the Eden-never-knows-what-she’s-doing subtext that laced most of my interactions with Avery.
“All right. Thanks for nothing. I’ll talk—”
He cut me off. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to be a dick. Look, if you want there to be something more between the two of you, you should talk to him. Be honest. Open up. He’s really the only person who can say anything meaningful on the subject.”
I wondered for a second if I could call Brett from the safety of the bathroom.
“Talk to him face-to-face,” Nolan added, as if he could read my thoughts.
“Fine. Fine.” I didn’t feel fine. I felt anxious and hopeful, and as uncomfortable as the anxiety was, I was even less used to feeling anything optimistic. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Good.”
“Thank you.”
“And good luck,” he said before hanging up. “You deserve a guy who’ll be good to you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that.
But after a night with Brett Sebastian, I was sure of one thing—every other man paled in comparison.
Chapter Five
While there were presumed benefits of having a conversation with Brett in my current state of nakedness, it seemed more appropriate that I be dressed.
A quick search through his bathroom laundry basket led me to the T-shirt he’d worn at yoga the day before. I did the sniff check to make sure it wasn’t a disgusting choice of attire and found that the only thing it smelled of was Brett’s natural manly state.
It was a scent that did surprising things to my lower parts. Had I always been so affected by his pheromones or was this a new thing brought on by the knowledge of how incredibly talented the guy was in bed?
I wanted to blame it on the latter, but there was a part of me that I’d refused to acknowledge for years that screamed it was the former.
Whichever, I slipped the T-shirt on and admired myself in his mirror. Still looked like a girl who’d been fantastically fucked—there was no doing anything with my hair and hickeys—but now I also wore the subtext of I belong to the guy who owns this shirt.
Maybe that was a little too obvious, but men in romance books always seemed to like seeing women in their belongings. Generally, the woman didn’t stay dressed for long, having been ravished on sight. Might as well try it out in real life.
I considered searching for a pair of shorts to wear underneath—from his drawers, not the basket—but I wondered if maybe that was too invasive, and besides, I was eager to see him. Surprisingly eager. As if it had been days instead of mere hours.
I was nervous too. Surprisingly nervous. And it took a good few deep breaths before I gathered my courage and strolled out to the kitchen. He was at the stove, cooking a batch of bacon. The greasy napkin on the counter suggested he’d already eaten the first batch.
I leaned a hip against the counter I’d leaned on the night before, trying not to let lusty thoughts of what we’d done there take over my agenda. “Morning.”
“Hey,” he said, throwing me a casual glance followed by a longer look when he realized what I was wearing. “You’re wearing my dirty laundry now? Maybe we need to draw lines in this relationship—for your sake, not mine.”
Not quite the reaction I’d intended.
I sniffed at it again, and still found nothing distasteful about the scent. “I think you have a strange barometer of what’s dirty and what isn’t.” The double entendre hit me after the words were out of my mouth, and I felt my cheeks heat with Brett’s grin. “Anyway, I think I look good in it.”
“Well. I can’t imagine there’s anything you don’t look good in.” He turned back to his cooking, so I had to assume that he was the one blushing now, even though I’d never seen him blush in ten years.
All right, maybe I fantasized he was blushing was a more accurate statement. Point was he’d reacted as I’d hoped after all. Sort of.
Okay, maybe not at all because his attention was completely on his cooking instead of on ravishing, but that was probably better since we needed to talk.
But how to start?
“I assume you want your usual?” he asked while I was figuring out what I should say. “I’m making this batch extra crispy.”
My “usual” referred to the bacon cheese tomato omelette he made for me every time I was over for breakfast. Three whole eggs, not just the egg whites, and topped with crispy bacon bits as well as loaded with them inside.
“Yes, please.” I was generally polite, but now the simple words felt charged. I’d used them time and time again over the course of the night—begging for his cock, begging for him to let me release, begging for him to never stop—and now I felt more wanton than well mannered.
I studied him, trying to see if the words had the same impact on him, and...nothing. He remained focused on his task, just like he always was. As though it was a regular old Sunday.
Feeling a little deflated, I circled around to the other side of the counter, climbed up on a stool, and wished I’d brought my phone from the bedroom so I could pretend to be flipping through social media like I normally did when he cooked for me. Instead of swooning over his every move like a crazy girl.
Fortunately—or not, depending on how I looked at it—he didn’t seem aware of me at all, let alone what I was doing.
Was he just that good at being “normal” or had last night not meant as much to him as it had to me? The longer he stayed with his back to me, the more I began to think I’d misinterpreted his crush and that crazy good sex was just his default with every woman.
Lucky women.
And also, I now hated every woman he’d ever given a second glance to.
I was still only at the beginning of my shame spiral when he finally turned to serve me a gorgeous-looking omelette covered in crispy bacon just the way I liked it and complete with a parsley garnish.
That much attention to detail had to imply he thought I was special, right?
If the plate of food didn’t, his eyes couldn’t hide it. There was a crackle when our gazes collided, and the corners of his mouth turned upward like he was fighting a headstrong smile.
“It’s four eggs instead of three,” he said. “I thought you could use the energy this morning.”
...There it was. An acknowledgment of what had happened, and now I was the one losing the battle with my smile.
Hell, I didn’t even try. I just grinned like an idiot.
But then all of a sudden, Brett was frowning. He reached out his hand to grab one of mine at the wrist. “Oh, shit. I did this to you?”
I looked down at the red mark. “I seem to remember not protesting.”