I got up, and holding hands, we walked into my house.
I had on a pair of honey-colored paperbag boxers and a black slim-fit, shelf-bra cami, and I was staring into the mirror over the sink in my bathroom.
I’d changed, brushed my teeth, washed my face and moisturized, and I had no excuse not to go out to where I’d left Rix, sitting on the side of my bed.
I was fretting again, because my sleep outfit was cute.
But I didn’t look like a Sports Illustrated model.
This is Rix.
You’ve shared another great, chill, awesome night with him.
He’s still here.
With you.
Yours.
For a time.
Stop fretting.
And take the leap.
I sucked in a breath so deep, I had to choke-cough twice before I recovered.
Then I walked out, got past the hallway created by my closet, and stopped dead.
This was because Rix’s deeply muscled, impossibly-wide-shoulders-tapering-down-to-his-narrow-waist back was on display.
And he had a tattoo.
Rising from the small of his back, the wingspan reaching from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, flames dancing all around, was a Phoenix.
Okay, how was it a woman’s heart could weep and her vagina gush at the same time?
I didn’t know, but it was happening to me.
He was standing, wearing sleep shorts that ran long.
But when he sensed me, he turned.
Oh…
My.
Protruding pecs, anatomical-style muscle definition, a collarbone that made my mouth water, black chest hair that covered his pectorals in delicious swirls narrowing to a line that followed the indent that ran down the middle of his cut abs, getting seriously dense under his navel.
That hair under his navel done me in, and since it did, I couldn’t even fully take in his bulging, veined biceps and sinewy forearms, the last I’d seen before, but not as parts of all the other glory.
In fact, I had to reach out and hold on to the wall.
“You done in the bathroom?” he asked.
I was so overwhelmed by his sheer male beauty, I didn’t catch the tightness in his voice.
I also couldn’t speak.
I nodded.
He moved my way, almost past me, but he stopped.
I twisted my neck and looked up at him.
He stared at me.
It took a second before I realized that was odd.
I took a wild stab at what it might be about.
“Did you bring your toothbrush?” I asked.
He lifted a hand.
I tore my eyes from his handsome face to see he had a toothbrush and toothpaste gripped in his fist.
He even held a toothbrush and toothpaste in a way that was reminiscent of the caveman who beat another caveman to death with his bare hands in order to claim that man’s cavewoman, and then he lifted the arm of his victim that’d he’d ripped from the poor guy’s body up in victory.
I nearly moaned.
I fought that urge and said, “You don’t have to bring toothpaste next time. You can use mine.”
His head tipped to the side in a gesture of confusion.
And he still didn’t move.
I was about to say something else, but didn’t, because his hand came up, and as I was learning was Rix’s way, he claimed my ear, this time the front of it and some of my jaw, in order to drop his head and brush his lips against mine.
He let me go and carried on to the bathroom.
I gave myself a sec to enjoy the aftermath of the lip brush before I finished the short trek to my room, turned my Vornado vintage fan on low, because I was a white noise, snuggle in your covers girl (thus even turned the fan on in the winter), then I wondered if Rix was a white noise dude.
In the end, I decided I could just ask him when he returned. If he wasn’t, it was simple enough to turn off.
I dumped some toss pillows on the floor, pulled back the coverlet, slid in, and felt my lips tip when I pulled back Rix’s side too. I then rearranged the pillows from standing on their end to sleeping position.
I was sitting cross-legged in bed when Rix came out.
I managed to get beyond his chest this time, and although the sleep shorts were long, they didn’t pass his knees.
Which were cupped into his prosthetics.
I’d never seen them before, and they were badass cool. They looked bionic.
I lifted my gaze to him, not quite noting that his gait was not fluid with a hitch, but was wooden, as he made his way around the bed.
Though I did notice his eyes were glued to me.
“You sleep with a fan?” I asked.
“What?” he asked back in a way that it seemed like he wasn’t certain what language I was speaking.
I tossed a hand out to the fan that was sitting on a long dresser that sat against the wall to the closet.
“Fan? I do white noise. But if it’ll bother you, I probably could do without it.”
“Probably” was pushing it, but we were feeling our way with this.
I’d fall asleep.
Eventually.
He was stopped by his side of the bed and staring at the fan like it’d dropped from space.
Finally, his strange demeanor hit me.
“Rix?” I called.
His gaze crashed down on me.
No other way to describe it.
It crashed on me.
“I’m taking my legs off now,” he announced.
I felt my brows knit and returned, “Well, yeah. I mean, you don’t sleep in them, of course. Right?”
“Right,” he whispered, the weight of his attention still heavy on me.
What was going on?
Was I supposed to do something?
“Am I missing something?” I asked carefully when he didn’t move.
“Are you missing something,” he muttered, not a question, and he didn’t answer me, but somehow, I felt like these four words were meaningful to him.
I just couldn’t figure out why.
“Rix, you’re kinda freaking me out,” I said softly.
“You’re a fuckin’ unicorn,” he declared.
I blinked. “What?”
He again didn’t answer.
He turned. I got the phoenix back. He sat, and I was treated to the spectacle of his muscles moving and flowing before I heard thud one then thud two.
He swung his arm long, grabbed the covers, and he was twisted and in bed with the covers up to his waist before…
Before…
Before I could see his legs.
God.
I was such an idiot.
Like, start to finish idiot.
Like, sure, he was tuned to me. We seemed pretty tuned to each other.
But this man walked up to my chair on the deck a few hours earlier, and knew he’d be right there.
With me.
Like this.
But with him exposed.
I was a total dufus.
He turned his head to me, and ordered softly, “Wanna turn out your light, baby?”
I sat there, staring at him.
His face.
His chest.
The dense hair under his belly button.
My pink sheet and white matelassé coverlet resting across his hips.
“Alexandra.”
My eyes raced up to his face.
“Can you sleep with a fan?” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“Good,” I said.
He twisted and turned out his light.
He came back, his gaze narrowed on me, and he asked, “You sleep with a light on too?”