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I gestured around the room. “Anything you want is yours. What would you like to wear to bed?”
Allie grinned as she began to walk along the right side of the closet. Her delicate fingers trailed over my extensive collection of Brioni dress shirts. When she reached the business suit section, she looked back over her shoulder and raised one of her perfectly arched brows. “Anything I want?” she teased.
“Anything at all,” I confirmed. Whatever she wanted, she could have.
She shot me a quick smile. “I can’t imagine sleeping in anything this dressy. Where’s the T-shirt section?”
I went to the island of drawers in the middle of the room. “All these drawers have tees in them,” I said, gesturing to a six-drawer section. “They’re all yours.”
Allie nodded as she opened the top drawer—the one that held all my white T-shirts—and pulled one out.
“Boxers?” she asked.
I motioned to the right with my head as I walked toward that section of the drawers. “Any of these drawers,” I said.
Allie set her hand on the top drawer but stopped short of opening it. “The boxers in here are going to be white, aren’t they?”
I nodded. “You caught onto the color-coded thing in only one drawer,” I noted.
“In all fairness, the way the shirts, jackets, and ties are divided by color made it pretty darn obvious,” she said.
Turning back to the drawers, she asked, “Which one is full of black or navy?”
I leaned forward, brushing against her arm as I opened the drawer full of black boxer briefs. Even with my jacket on, I was very aware of the contact. Fuck, she affected me in the craziest way.
“I swear I don’t have OCD,” I hastened to assure her. “At least not about clothes. I organize it this way for two reasons. First, it makes it easy for me when I do laundry. And second, so that I can be in and out quickly when news breaks, and I get called in to go live on short notice.”
She grinned as she plucked out a pair of briefs and set them on the marble top of the island. “I’m not judging. If anything, I’m jealous. I organize my stuff by season because my closet is tiny, and it makes sense to switch things in and out that way.”
My gaze automatically went to the empty left-hand side of my closet. It was wild how easy it was to imagine it full of Allie’s clothes.
“Is it okay if I change in the bathroom?” she asked, pulling me from my thoughts.
I nodded and walked her to the back of the closet. With the touch of a button, the shoe wall opened to reveal a door to the bathroom.
“Go out the other door when you’re finished,” I told her. “It leads out into the main part of my bedroom. I’ll meet you there.”
Once she went into the bathroom, I quickly stripped down to my boxers, returned my dress shoes to the shelf, and put my clothes into the laundry basket that was for dry cleaning.
Since I normally slept in my boxers, I didn’t own even one pair of pajamas. I didn’t want to make Allie uncomfortable, so I put on a white T-shirt and a pair of black basketball shorts. Taking the two bottles of water I’d brought with me off the counter, I left the closet.
I paced like a fucking nut as I waited for her to come out of the bathroom. It wasn’t because I was nervous about her staying—rather, it was that I wanted to be close to her. Even the small amount of distance between the bedroom and the bathroom seemed too far.
When she came out, I breathed a sigh of relief that quickly morphed into a muffled groan. Somehow, she looked even sexier in my shirt and boxers than she had in her hot-as-fuck gown. It made no sense, but it was true.
“Tired?” I asked.
Oscar night parties went on forever, so it was after five in the morning by that point.
Allie yawned as she crossed the room to my bed. “Exhausted.”
Pulling back the covers on the normally unused right side, I gestured for her to get in.
She hesitated for a second, her eyes darting back and forth between the bed and me.
“Second thoughts?” I asked, praying I was wrong.
She was silent for a few seconds before she climbed onto the bed and answered. “Not really, but it’s definitely weird that we’re about to sleep together without sleeping together.”
“It’ll happen, but we aren’t going to rush it,” I said.
At least I fucking hoped so.
“So…baby steps?” She questioned with a giggle.
“Something like that,” I agreed.
I walked around the bed and got onto the other side. I wondered if it would be uncomfortable, but it was the opposite. It felt right to end the day with her, like I’d been missing it forever. When she yawned again as I pulled the covers up, I knew she needed to sleep.
