“How do you feel?” My voice comes out hoarse. Jesus, I’m rock hard just from touching her fingers. Under cold water.
“Since you’re giving my fingers an ice bath, I don’t actually have feeling in them,” she lies through her teeth and deliberately breaks our connection. Pulling her hand out of mine, she lifts her fingers to inspect the damage.
“Then they aren’t burning,” I say rather unsympathetically because I’m exasperated at how she keeps denying this thing between us. I push her fingers back under the water. I leave her to stand at the sink while I pick up the now cooled cookie sheet.
“I can do that,” she protests as I kneel down and hand sweep the dead cookie remains into a pile.
“I’ve no doubt that you can, but surprise, so can I.” And this way I’m not staring at the way your nipples are poking against the Harry Potter T-shirt you call a nightgown or the fact you have man socks slouched around your ankles. I am, stupidly, bothered by that fact. It looks intimate and wrong—mostly because they aren’t my socks. I bet they’re Ace’s.
“If you’re looking for Ace and the guys, they’re at the Gas Station tonight,” she informs me, as if she can read my mind.
“I know. I was just there. I told you, I came to get some booze.” She frowns at the curtness of my voice. And frankly I don’t know why I’m pissy. Or, more accurately, I don’t want to acknowledge why my buzz has burned off and I’m stomping around like a kid who had a toy taken away from him. What I do know is that I want her. Desperately. I want to kiss her and touch her and fuck her and— “Dust bin?” I force myself to ask.
“I don’t think they have one.”
“Right.” Because the cleaning fairies come once a week. I drag the trashcan closer to the cookies and scoop up the mess as best I can. Behind me, Goldilocks makes a frustrated noise. I check my watch. “You’re probably good to go now.”
“Thank God. I’m turning into Elsa here.” She wipes her hands on a towel. Her voice is unaffected, but her legs are shaky as she strolls over to a cabinet next to the refrigerator and pulls down a half-full bottle of Jack Daniels. At least I’m not the only one affected by this. That would suck. “This what you are looking for?”
I start to take the bottle, but I realize if I do take it, I’m done here. And I’m not ready to be done. Not by a long shot. I’m not sure what her hold up is, but I’m starting to think it might be Ace.
There’s a pile of baked cookies on the counter near the fridge. My stomach rumbles at the sight of them. “What do I have to do to get one of those?” I gesture behind her.
She turns to look at the cookies. “Feel free to have one, or ten. But they’re sugar free.”
My hand pauses over the pile. “What’s the point?” I can’t help myself from running my eyes over her again. She’s nicely rounded all over. Hips, tits, face. I like it all. It’s as if I shook a bag with all my preferences and out she fell.
Luce merely shrugs. “I like them that way.”
Hell. A cookie is a cookie. “Sounds delicious.”
“And you sound dubious,” she laughs, completely unoffended. “Go sit down and I’ll bring you a plate. Want milk?”
“Does Elmo like to be tickled?” I grab a chair and watch her bustle around making me a plate of cookies and milk.
“I actually don’t know if he does. What if he hates being tickled but everyone does it anyway just to hear him laugh?”
“But he does laugh,” I point out.
“Sure, but it could be a nervous reaction. Like someone laughing at a funeral when they’re actually super sad.”
“You’re ruining my childhood with your theories,” I say with mock sternness.
She presses her lips together to keep from laughing. “I didn’t take you for an Elmo lover.” The plate of cookies slides into view.
“Are you insulting my manhood now?” I pick up one of the cookies and take a bite. It’s…pretty good. I tell her so. “These don’t have sugar? I feel like you’re just full of lies.”
“Entirely sugar free,” she declares and takes a seat next to me.
I fake a shocked gasp. “You’re sitting down? At the same table as me? The guy who’s too risky to go out with?”
She flushes. “I was just...”
“Just what? Being polite?” I arch a brow. “Being a good hostess?” A smile tugs free. “Just admit it—you like me. You like talking to me, and you like being around me.”
She sighs.
“I promise I’ll keep your secret, don’t worry.”
I polish off the remainder of the cookies and milk and lean back, shoving the Jack Daniels behind me. I’m in no hurry to go anywhere.
“So why are you playing hostess?” I ask curiously. “And how come you’re here by yourself?” She opens her mouth, but I hold up a hand. “Wait, let me guess. I’m going to assume that you’re here because your roommate is celebrating her six-week anniversary with her new dude. You needed a place to crash and wandered around campus until you found this house. Knowing the guys, the door was unlocked and you thought that with all the empty rooms and beds, this must be a campus-designated safe place for young, temporarily homeless women such as yourself.”
She grins, almost in spite of herself. “And why am I not in bed?”