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He nods shyly. “Loren, are you sure you’re okay with everything? I realize this is a lot at once, and the last thing we need is for you to feel stressed.”
“It is a lot, but I think I’m okay. Thanks to you.”
His smile widens again. “Good. All I want is to make you comfortable … and happy.”
“I will be, so long as you stock enough peanut butter for the foreseeable future. And you don’t mind sharing your tub.”
He chuckles. “It’s all yours, babe. And I wasn’t kidding before. If you want my bedroom?—”
“No, I’m fine in the room next door. I’ll just use the hall bathroom in the middle of the night and bathe in there, if that’s all right with you.”
“And if I said we could share my king-sized bed so you could be closer to the en suite?” he ventures with a hopeful look.
I scrunch my nose. “I think that might be pushing our luck, don’t you?”
He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. “It was worth a shot.”
I look away and try to hide my smile. Why would he want me in his bed so badly, especially now that he knows there’s no chance he’ll get lucky?
“Speaking of getting naked, I’m going to take a quick shower before we eat. I smell terrible.”
“You smell great,” I blurt out before I can help myself, and his lips twitch. “I mean, I’m starving, so I’d rather just eat now. I’m used to eating lunch in a cloud of teenage boy B.O., anyway.”
He continues staring at me, and the butterflies in my stomach take note. “Only if you’re sure I smellgreat, Reed.”
“Did I say ‘great’? I meant to say, ‘good enough,’” I retort, rolling my eyes.
He nods, pursing his lips as he regards me skeptically. “Sure you did.”
“Fine. See if I give you a pity kiss again,” I grumble.
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
“Well, I—I…” I stutter, unsure of how to answer that. “It was a kiss between friends, like all the other times.”
“Notallother times.”
I scoff. “Those were just for show.”
“Hmm. If you say so,” he begins with a sexy smirk. “You kiss all your friends the way you kiss me?” His voice is deep and his brow cocked.
I shift on the couch, trying to disguise the way his question makes me squirm. “Only the ones I pretend to date.”
He immediately straightens up and narrows his eyes. “What do you mean by that? What exactly constitutes a pretend date?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I answer, pressing my lips together and stifling a grin.
“Agnes, you’d better answer that question if you want my brother to live to see another day.”
“Relax, dude. No need for the fratricidal threats. You’d know if JD and I had been willing to take it that far, because Tenley would have gotten to me first,” I say, giggling. He rolls his shoulders back and forces a small smile as I continue. “I made that same joke in front of your sister-in-law once, and I swear my life flashed before my eyes.”
“Who needs to worry about Landry Reed with her around?”
“Yeah.” I laugh again, and we stare at one another for a second before I speak up. “You’d better go shower. I’ll be hangry before you know it.”
“Sure you don’t want to give me a friendly kiss goodbye first?”
I rake my teeth over my bottom lip when it starts tingling again. “I told you, no more pity kisses from me.”
