But what else was taking up all this time if it wasn’t the longest shower ever in the history of showers? Was he dressing? Shaving? Plucking each of his whiskers out one at a time with tweezers? Counting the tiles on the floor? What?
Suddenly I pictured him with nothing but a towel draped around his waist, hard muscular chest coated with steam and maybe a few droplets of water. Even if he was taking forever in there, I mentally took advantage. Lying on the bed, I stared at the ceiling and indulged myself in a nice little visualization. His delicious arms, biceps rippling as he reached up to shave. I wondered if he had dimples in his back at the base of his spine. Did he still work out regularly or was that fit form just from having been athletic when he was younger?
In spite of this pleasant turn of my thoughts, I still seethed about Mike’s shitty remark about the loud sex. He wanted loud sex to keep him up all night? I was more than happy to oblige, even if just for his benefit. Getting up, I went to the bedroom door, cracked it open a bit and began fake moaning loudly à la Meg Ryan from When Harry Met Sally. “Oh baby, give it to me!” I practically wailed. I tried rattling the headboard but it wouldn’t budge—solid wood antique and probably made from ancient redwood trees.
I tried pounding on the wall. No luck… it being an old house meant that the walls were solid plaster. No sound carried between the walls. At all.
So I went back to the door to holler some more. “Oh, oh, oh! Yeah, baby. Harder!” And I added in an unearthly howl for good measure before shutting the door.
Silence except for the complaint of old hinges. I spun and there was Lucas in the washroom doorway. He clutched the doorknob as if it was the handle to a knight’s shield brandished to protect himself from some unseen onslaught. His eyes were wider than normal.
My face flamed hot, and I blinked, scrambling to explain. “I, uh. Well, they… Mike, uh….”
His eyebrows went up, and he nodded expectantly, waiting for me to spit it out.
I blew out a huff and gestured stiffly toward the washroom. “Are you done in there?”
He stepped into the room wearing dark blue cotton pajamas. They were creased and looked stiff, as if they’d just been ripped out of the package. Like his grandma had gifted them to him for Christmas and he’d promptly dropped them in an empty drawer because…. Because he usually slept naked, or something.
He looked hotter than I’d ever expected any guy to look in cotton pajamas. There was something so… clean and honorable and upright about him normally. The pajamas just added to that image. But there’d been nothing clean and wholesome about what his mouth had done to me the night before as I was sprawled across his piano, his eyes like super-heated coals. I swallowed.
He motioned to the empty washroom. “All yours.”
I didn’t have much to do besides wash my face and change my clothes. I’d shower in the morning, like usual. But upon returning to the bedroom, I suddenly fathomed how small a queen-sized bed could be. Especially when sharing it with a handsome non sex-partner. In addition to a whole heaping of unrealized sexual tension.
I hovered at the edge of the bed, and he glanced up from the e-book on his tablet.
“Uh, so how should we do this?” I cleared my throat. “Like, um head to toe? Or me above the covers and you underneath? Or—”
He blinked and rolled his eyes. “Just get in. I’ll try to control my urges.”
I clenched my jaw, wondering if I could control mine.
As I’d come to expect from Lucas, the quality of his bed linens were freshly cleaned and top notch. Probably billion thread count premium organic Tunisian cotton hand-picked and woven by virgins. They did feel heavenly against my skin. I slid in, then rolled over on my side to face him. Propping my head up on my hand, I studied his profile for a moment as he fiddled with his tablet.
As if he felt my stare, his head pivoted, and he fixed his dark, unwavering gaze on me.
Our eyes locked and the air seemed to thicken between us. I studied the dark fringe of lashes around his eyes as his gaze roamed my face, settling