He leaned against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms over his chest, watching me as I put the bag of food down. I walked over to him and put a hand on his cheek to feel if he had a temperature. He closed his eyes at the contact and breathed through his nose, grimacing like it hurt to have his head touched.
“You don’t feel hot. Do you have a headache?”
He opened his eyes and stared at me.
I had to be honest—I’d hoped for a happier reunion. I thought…
I don’t know what I thought. I shouldn’t be thinking anything. I shouldn’t be hoping for anything either.
“Stomach?” I asked.
Silence.
“Voice box?”
He flexed his jaw. “It’s not a good idea for you to be here right now,” he said flatly, his voice cold.
I gave him a crooked smile. There was nowhere I’d rather be. I didn’t give a shit if he was contagious. “What hurts?”
It took him a moment. “Everything.”
I snorted. “Wow. A man cold. Okay, I’m equipped to deal with this. Come on. Get in bed.”
“Kristen, you should go. You should look for another carpenter,” he said.
“Wow. Are you dying?” I laughed, opening up my purse and taking out my Aleve. I shook two into my hand and handed him the Coke I brought him.
“It’s funny that you bring up getting a new carpenter.” I handed him the pills, and he stood there looking at them in the palm of his hand, passively.
“Guess who showed up at the butt crack of dawn this morning begging for his job back. Miguel.” I shook my head. He’d seen my carpenter ad on Craigslist. “Lost his job at Universal.”
I put my hands on my hips and peered around his apartment. God, it was a mess. Clothes everywhere. His duffel bag from Vegas was still plopped next to the bed. He probably had two weeks of laundry to do.
Looks like it’s my time to shine.This place was getting an exorcism. I’d get on it as soon as I got the patient in bed.
I turned back to him. “I don’t even want to know what that dude did to get fired. He was always a little creepy. Like, Silence of the Lambs, ‘it puts the lotion on its skin’ creepy. And he came over, and I was in nothing but a robe.” I shivered as it gave me the heebie-jeebies. “To be honest, it was too bad you weren’t there. I could have used a bouncer.”
His eyes bored into me, his messy hair over his forehead. He stared at me just long enough for it to be weird and then set his soda down. In a single fluid movement he gathered me in his arms and folded me into his chest, burying his face in my neck. It was so unexpected I froze.
And then I melted.
I’d missed him. So much. And I loved it when he held me. It was something I couldn’t allow outside of sex because it made me want to never let go. But this hug took me by surprise, and once I was in it, there was no getting out. My heart just wasn’t that strong.
He clutched me to him so hard that for a second I got worried something was wrong. Really wrong. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him back, wondering if he’d gotten some bad news. He didn’t look well, and he never broke my no-affection rules.
“What’s wrong?” I whispered.
He shook his head in the crook of my neck. “I’m just glad you’re here.”
He dragged his face from my neck and looked like he might kiss me, but instead he put his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.
I gave him a breathless smile. “Well, we’re friends with benefits, right?” I said, my lips an inch from his mouth. “This is the friends part.”
And I missed you. Couldn’t stand not seeing you today. Wanted to take care of you. Needed to make sure you were okay.
He put a hand to my cheek and ran a thumb along my lips. Then he leaned in and kissed me. It was tentative and soft, and I dissolved into it.
It was like the space I’d put between us made me need more of him to make up for it, and I couldn’t get close enough or soak up enough of him.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him harder, pressing against him as he started to walk me backward toward the bed. We tripped over the mess, our mouths never breaking contact, our feet tangling in discarded clothes and boxes. I knocked into his lamp and it fell sideways with a crash, but we didn’t stop. We peeled off each other’s shirts, slamming back into each other before they touched the ground.
By the time we hit the mattress and he glided over me, I was ravenous. I tugged at his sweatpants, but he shook his head and dragged my hands up to hold them against the pillow. “No.” His lips trailed down my jaw.
I tipped my head back while his mouth moved along my skin. “What do you mean ‘no’?” I breathed.
He smelled incredible, his heady masculine cedar scent like an evocative pheromone. Heat came off his chest, and the way he had my hands imprisoned, I was cocooned in his body, nestled between his strong arms.
“You’re in trouble,” he said into my collarbone. “You’ve lost dick privileges.”
I snorted. “What? Why?”
He came back up and ground himself against my core, shooting electricity through my body, and my need intensified.
“You didn’t talk to me for two weeks.” He sucked my lip between his teeth. “You’re on punishment.” His tongue plunged into my mouth.
I was practically panting. I tried to work my hands free, and he held them firmer to the bed, smiling wickedly against my lips. He shook his head. “No.” He pressed into me, hard as a rock.
So it’s to be torture, then.
I made an impatient noise. “Well…how do I get my privileges back?” I wiggled my hips seductively and his breath caught in his throat. I smirked and he squeezed his eyes shut, clearly struggling with his boycott.
“You have to apologize for ignoring me.”
“I’m sorry.” I nipped at his lip.
“And tell me you missed me.”
I nodded. “Yes,” I whispered. “I missed you.”
He opened his eyes and looked at me. “Say it again.”
I held his serious, brown-eyed stare. “I missed you, Josh.”
His eyes moved back and forth between mine, like he was trying to determine if I really meant it.
I really did mean it. I missed him even now, and he was right here.
He nodded, something softening on his face, and he released my hands.
I went straight to his pants again, but he got off me, stripped, and kneeled between my knees. Then he grabbed the waist of my shorts and pulled them down. “Are you bleeding?”
His hooded eyes were dark with desire, his breathing ragged. He was famished. No way he’d slept with someone else these last two weeks. He was on the same sex drought I was.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not bleeding.”
He lowered his face between my legs and gripped my hips, pulling me to his mouth. I gasped. His tongue went to work, and my hands flew to his hair.
Oh my fucking God…
He’d never done this before—I was usually spotting. And holy shit—he was an oral virtuoso. I don’t know what he was doing down there, but it was obvious I was in the hands of a professional. Fuck, is he good at everything?
My knees started to shake. I moaned, and like he knew I was about to lose it, he came up and lowered himself over me. “I don’t have a condom.”
Nooooooo!“What? Why? Where are they?”
His mouth descended my neck, kissing me roughly. “At your house, where I leave them,” he said huskily.
I’m the only person he’s sleeping with? I mean, I know he said his dates didn’t usually…
My favorite plaything pressed against my stomach, teasing me, and I lost my train of thought.
Fuck it.“No condom—I don’t care,” I gasped. “You’re the only one I’m sleeping with too.”
He jerked up and looked at me, his shallow breath rolling over my face. He studied me for a second, something unreadable in his eyes. Then he crushed his mouth to mine and slid into me.
There was something deeper about the sex this time, more emotional, desperate. Both of us were frantic, like we’d thought we were never going to see each other again, and the lack of a condom, the absence of that barrier, elevated everything, made us hungrier.
Neither of us were going to make it very long. There was no way.
His forceful thrusts launched me into spasms within seconds. My moaning pushed him over the edge and he poured inside of me, growling and gasping.
He collapsed and we clutched each other, catching our breath, his forehead to mine in a light sheen of sweat. It took me a solid minute to muster the ability to speak. “I thought you were sick,” I breathed. “Faker.”
His chuckle rumbled against my breasts. “All part of my ploy to get you to come over.”
I laughed and he squeezed his arms against my sides and smiled down on me, kissing me softly, his heart beating against my chest.
I love you, Josh. I wish I could tell you. I wish I could keep you.
With a twinge of dread, I wondered how I would live without these moments when it all came to an end. I’d have to enjoy every second of the next week and a half with him. Absorb it, store it up.
And then hope it was enough to last a lifetime.
* * *
We’d been in his bed for hours. We never did that at my house. There were always too many excuses I could come up with for why we had to go back to friends-only mode. Emails to check, deliveries to sign for, orders to work on. And once we left the bed, my rules dictated that the affection had to stop. But here, we had nothing to do but stay between the sheets. Josh didn’t have a sofa or a TV, so we hung out under the covers, and technically, according to my own rules, that meant that kissing and affection were okay.
I was enjoying the loophole. I needed every second of it.
Josh didn’t seem to object either. We’d been having sex all day. After our quickie, we’d had a long, slow marathon, full of deep kissing and gentle rocking, followed by a giggling and playful romp with Josh tickling me mercilessly before he took me from behind. After we wore each other out, we’d lain there, our legs tangled together, talking about everything we did over the last two weeks. He told me about the strike team and how much he liked being in the woods and not running medical calls. How beautiful Sequoia National Park had been and how much I would have liked a band that played in a bar they went to in their off-hours.
I told him all about the wedding errands I’d been on with Sloan and dropping off a large order at Dale’s mansion and how Stuntman had bit the FedEx guy again.
He didn’t bring up calling me from Vegas, thank God. He probably didn’t remember.
He ran a knuckle along my cheek. “I’m going to get a drink. Are you thirsty? Want something?”
“Water.”