She was amused by how mockingly serious he sounded. To be fair, she was also impressed by how much he had finished from her quick look of it. "How long have you been working on that?"
"About a half hour."
"Not bad, King." She walked over and took a seat by the chair he had propped his feet up on, putting her coffee next to the pile of newspaper. "So were the other women impressed by your crossword prowess the morning after?" she said teasingly.
Charlotte saw him flinch slightly, his jaw clenching almost involuntarily as he continued to stare at the page in front of him, his pen hanging in mid-air. "I usually never stayed long enough to find out," he said quietly.
He put the crossword down on the table to fill out another answer as Charlotte tried to decide how to apologize for what she had said. Jordan told her the truth last night about not being the man he used to be. He was trying to change and be a different person, something she knew all too well.
"I'm sorry. That was rude of me to ask."
He shook his head without looking up at her. "Not rude, just accurate."
"Jordan?" She put her hand on his knee and he finally looked up at her. "You can do my crossword puzzle whenever you want."
He gave her a genuine smile that set her at ease. "Just to be clear though, you are talking about the actual crossword puzzle and not making some weird euphemism for sex?"
"You can interpret it in whatever way you want."
He smiled and put his pen down on the table. "Well, if we're making apologies, I'm sorry about falling asleep again last night. I think your bed was a little too comfortable."
Her mind flashed to crawling under the covers, his hands instinctively pulling her close. Her cheeks started to burn from that memory so she shook her head and waved her hand casually in the air. "It was the middle of the night."
Jordan stood up, putting his finger under her chin so he could lightly kiss her lips. "I still owe you then." She hummed as he kissed her again. "And I would hate it if I wasn't able to enjoy your comfortable bed one more time before I leave."
"That would be awful," she said as he began to trail kisses down her neck.
"And I believe this is my shirt."
"It is," she replied, her breath speeding up as his fingers traced the bottom hem of it.
"I need it back, Charlie." His voice was low and vibrated in her chest as his hand began to ghost her skin underneath it.
"If you want it back, I'm sure we can figure out some sort of arrangement."
She could feel his smile against her neck. Then he took her hand and pulled her up out of her chair, kissing her harder, his mouth tasting like warm coffee. His hands grabbed the fabric on the front of the white t-shirt, bunching it in his fist as he began to pull her back to her bedroom, his lips never leaving hers.
Her hair smelled sweet, her skin soft under his fingers, glistening just a bit in the morning sun after she had her way with him again. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't stop himself. The way she looked in his t-shirt was too much. The good news was that it was somewhere on her floor again. The bad news was it had been replaced with her naked body now pressed against his chest.
"I wish I could stay here all day next to you," he murmured.
"Did I say you couldn't?"
"You didn't," he conceded. "But I can't be late for practice. Don't want to set a bad example as captain of the team."
"Oh, you're the captain?" she asked him innocently.
"I am."
"That sounds like it's a very important job," she said, putting an extra emphasis on her words.
Jordan groaned from beneath her. "Don't say it like that or I'll never leave."
She sat up, wrapping the sheet around her chest. "Oh, I'm sorry. Does it bother you that I like talking about your very important job?"
"Don't distract me from putting my clothes back on," he said before climbing out of bed to grab his stuff.
He found his white t-shirt and pulled it over his head. It smelled like her now. Damn, Charlotte was just as much of a distraction with his clothes on as with his clothes off.
