My Cone and Only (King Family #1) - Susannah Nix Page 0,39
today. But I was up to the challenge. My dick was not the one in charge here—not where Andie was concerned, anyway. The emergency override protocols in my brain kicked in, and I leaped forward to offer gentlemanly assistance.
“Here, I can put those in the wash for you.” I held out my hands to take her smelly clothes.
“Thanks.” She folded them up into a ball before trading them for her messenger bag. “Can you start them on the presoak cycle with two cups of vinegar? It’s in the cabinet next to the machines.”
I nodded and held the back door open for her, letting her precede me into the house.
She dropped her bag on the kitchen table as I headed for the laundry room. “And make sure you wash your hands after,” she called out. “I’m going to go shower for a year.”
I started the washing machine while she went upstairs. Then I used the Lava soap I’d left in the downstairs bathroom to scrub my hands until they were raw and pink to make sure I wouldn’t attract any amorous beetles.
When I came out of the bathroom, I could hear the shower running upstairs, and I tried not to think about the fact that Andie was naked up there right now. Her skin slick with water, her hands lathering soap over her body and combing through her wet hair…
Fuck.
I went outside and put away all my tools to distract me from thinking about Andie naked in the shower. By the time I came back in ten minutes later, the water upstairs was off and I heard the floorboards creaking overhead as she walked around her bedroom. She came down a few minutes later, her hair wet and hanging loose around her face, wearing an old T-shirt and a pair of cutoff jeans shorts.
I met her at the door of the kitchen and handed her a beer. “Feel better?” She certainly smelled much better—amazing, actually. All traces of beetle love juice were gone, replaced by the honeysuckle scent of her shampoo, which always made me a little weak in the knees.
“Yes. And bless you for this.” She tipped the bottle at me and took a long drink.
As she arched her back, my eyes drifted unwittingly to her chest where the peaks of her nipples showed through the thin cotton of her shirt. Definitely not wearing a bra now. Forcing my gaze elsewhere, I gulped down a mouthful of the beer I’d opened for myself.
“I didn’t stop to get any dinner for us—for obvious reasons—but I figured we could order pizza.” She padded over to the table and dug around in her bag for her phone. “Now that I’ve got that smell off me, I’m starving.”
“You should take a peek in the freezer,” I said, remembering the surprise I’d gotten her.
She glanced up at me, her eyebrows arching in inquiry, and I smiled as I inclined my head toward the fridge. Spinning on her bare feet, she yanked the freezer open and let out a squeal of delight when she saw the eight pints of King’s Thar She Blows! bubblegum ice cream I’d stowed in there. “My favorite flavor!”
“I know.” She really had the worst possible taste in ice cream, but I was willing to enable her disgusting cravings if it made her happy.
She rounded on me again, smiling for the first time since she’d come home reeking of bug pheromones. “You brought me ice cream? Even though you hate it?” Her eyes sparkled with a warmth that reached right into my chest and gave my heart a hard yank.
I shrugged like it was nothing. Like I hadn’t done it hoping to make her smile exactly like she was smiling at me right now. “It was on my way.”
It hadn’t been. I’d made a special trip to the plant just for her and stopped into the warehouse to ask for a case of the revolting stuff to bring home.
She came toward me, and I knew she was going to kiss my cheek. It was something she did all the time, so I recognized the way she tilted her head up, her lips pursing as she drew nearer, and I knew she’d wrap her fingers around my forearm to lever herself up on her toes.
Every other time she’d done it, I’d turned my head away, presenting my cheek as I leaned down to make it easier for her to reach. It was instinctive by now. As natural as breathing.