Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,16

obsessive about disinfecting everything? Or using more hand sanitizer than I already did? People were talking about wearing masks out in public. Would Casey get offended if I started wearing one at home? Because it seemed a little incendiary to tell him I was wearing a mask because I didn’t know if the guys he was screwing were infected. Maybe I could just tell him I didn’t trust the Navy to take enough precautions. Actually…yeah. If I had to start wearing a mask, I’d just play that card. God knew everyone in the Navy was well-acquainted with the boat crud—the microbe that inevitably made its way through the entire crew of five thousand during a deployment.

A car engine outside got Tilly’s attention, and she perked up the way she only did when she heard one particular vehicle. With a happy meow, she stomped over me and jumped into the windowsill to look outside.

Sure enough, a moment later, Casey’s blue Corolla pulled past the front window and into its parking spot beside my truck.

At the same time Tilly started kneading on the windowsill and purring, my heart did the nervous jump it always did when Casey came home. So much for concentrating.

When he got out of the car and headed toward the front door, he was walking a little gingerly like he sometimes did after he’d pulled an all-nighter with someone. It was that walk like his hips weren’t attached quite right. It drove me nuts, watching him walk that way, so I tried not to, but damn, I couldn’t help it. I had no idea if he was a top or a bottom, or if he was vers, but whatever he was, he almost never came back from a night in someone’s bed without moving like he’d had a hell of a workout. If he was moving easily, he was usually kind of bitchy, which I took to mean the night had been a disappointment.

Between that and the occasional guy he brought home, I’d come to the conclusion that the man I’d married on paper liked it rough and enthusiastic, and sex wasn’t sex if he didn’t have a few marks the next day.

But was I having sex with him? No. Because instead of friends with benefits, we were married for benefits, and not the naked fun kind. That, and even if he wasn’t openly hostile toward me now that we didn’t work together, that didn’t necessarily mean he liked me enough to want me naked. Meanwhile I’d thought he was hot as fuck from day one, still thought he was hot as fuck even when I realized he was an asshole, and now I had to occasionally listen to him having exactly the kind of sex I hadn’t had in ages.

So not fair.

The front door opened, and Tilly flew past me onto the back of the couch.

Casey laughed. “Hey, you miss me?”

She purred louder, then disappeared from beside my head. He’d probably picked her up.

I glanced over my shoulder, and yep, as usual, he was cradling her like a baby while he toed off his shoes by the door. He murmured to her and laughed when she batted at his nose. He acknowledged me with a quiet nod, and as he headed upstairs, he kept talking to Tilly.

“Aww, you did miss me, didn’t you? I know, baby. I was gone forever. I am the worst.”

I smiled to myself. As much as having Casey home made my chest tight, I had to smile. I’d never admit it out loud under torture, but he was pretty damn cute with our cat.

So what does a guy have to do to find a boyfriend who’s as affectionate toward me as Casey is to Tilly?

And…so much for smiling.

With a sigh, I shifted my attention back to the homework I’d been ignoring.

The sooner I finish this, I told myself for the billionth time, the sooner I’m out of here and away from him.

Ah, there was my missing motivation.

I’d just finished my chapter, refreshed my coffee, and sat down to look over the rest of this week’s assignments when Casey came downstairs with a laundry basket on his hip. And no shirt on. Damn him. I shouldn’t have looked. I knew I shouldn’t have looked. I did look, though, and goddamn. Whoever he’d been with last night had some serious nails, and the stripes on Casey’s back made my own back break out in goose bumps.

“I’m throwing in some laundry.” He gestured at the laundry room.