Twisted Love (Modern Romance #3) - Piper Lawson Page 0,45
our room, holding the door.
She kicks off her shoes and pads across the carpet to the marble bathroom. “Have you seen this tub, Ben? I want one at home. All that’s missing is Henry Cavill.”
“If you’d given me more notice, I would’ve arranged it for you,” I grit out, unable to match her levity.
Daisy tosses me a knowing look over her shoulder.
I steer her toward the vanity, holding her arm over the sink. “You wash,” I instruct her. “I’m getting peroxide.”
“You packed some? What a Boy Scout.”
My glare goes unappreciated. “Hold this under the water until I get back.” I retrieve my travel supplies and come back. I take her hand, studying the cut again. To my relief, it’s only bleeding a little. “I think you’ll live. But I’m cleaning it anyway.”
“Do your worst, Dr. Ben.”
She smiles at me, and I shake my head as if I can impress upon her how not cool it is that she worried me by daring to bleed when I was already distracted by her. Us.
“It’s just a little blood,” she says.
I wet a clean pad with peroxide and she hisses as I press it on the cut. “I don’t like the thought of you in danger.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
I look up to see her watching me steadily, not looking the least bit drunk. On the contrary, she looks lucid, intent, and way too fucking beautiful.
"That woman says she hit on you and you turned her down,” Daisy goes on. “Why?”
I dispose of the pad and search in my bag for a bandage. “I’m here with you.”
“But you’re not here with me.”
"We agreed that for this month, we'd be… faithful," I say for lack of a better word.
"I don't want you to be faithful to me because you promised. I want you to be faithful because you choose to be."
I wrap her hand in silence, the only sound a couple’s distant laughter in the hallway, muffled by the door.
I could tell her I am faithful to her. That I have been for a long fucking time.
That the heart beating in my chest sounds different when she’s around, and whatever superpower I’ve been exercising to ignore that fact is fading after weeks.
Months.
Years.
“The women were great,” she goes on at last. “They let loose and it felt like a real relationship.” She sighs happily. “I haven’t had that in so long. I have that with my girls at work, but it’s not the same. Not since Vi.”
My chest tightens. “I know. I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
I can’t replace her sister. But when she shoots me a look, it doesn’t seem like she’s thinking about her sister.
I drop her hand and Daisy turns, her hips sinking against the vanity, the bright bulbs reflecting on her smooth back above the dress.
“When they told me there was one bed, first I thought, that’s a bad idea. He’s going to be so close all night. And you were. I woke up early in the morning and you were holding me and it felt…”
“How did it feel?” I need the answer more than I’ve needed anything.
She inspects the bandage on her hand before letting it fall back to her side. “It felt right.”
I exhale hard.
Daisy’s watching me like she wants me every bit as much as I want her.
Not taking advantage of my beautiful, tipsy friend tonight will be hard, especially after spending today with her, realizing what it could be like. As if maybe I’m missing something.
“Tell you what,” I say, “I’ll run you a bath. You get into your pajamas.”
She heads out to the room while I strip off my tie and roll up my sleeves and run the bath. Then I straighten, seeing her in something that’s definitely not what I expected.
“Are you ready?” She brushes past me in her strapless black bra, her breasts spilling over the top, and matching panties.
I can’t resist cutting a look over my shoulder. The sight of her ass in that thong is sweet heaven and hell at once.
“D, those aren’t pajamas.”
“I’ll put them on later,” she insists, waving her bandaged hand.
Shit.
I'm a decent man, but I'm no hero and I've never aspired to be. It takes muscles I didn't know I had to get out of there. To sit on the bed, reading stock markets and political shit to get my dick under control and erase the sight of her in that lingerie.
When that fails, I take a page from her book and summon reason.