“Eh, we’ll just do what we were going to do today, and then you can head home whenever. I’m sure Steve will show up, and if he beats you there, well, you just look nonchalant, and not like you were going totally starry-eyed from just talking about him.”
Jordyn nodded, sitting up straighter. “Okay, yeah. I like that plan. It’s a perfect plan, Dora.” She nodded and took a sip of her coffee. She could focus on Dora and what they had planned for the day. What woman didn’t want a day with her best friend with nothing more pressing than what they were going to have for lunch?
No one. That’s who.
Chapter Nine
The morningwith Jordyn had definitely not been the type of thing Steve was used to. Not by a long shot. An angry ex? A girl that made him want to stay in bed? Both of those alone were enough to confuse a man, but then there was the protective streak that had come to life in him when seeing Jordyn’s worried face with her idiot ex posturing in her apartment.
He couldn’t let the man make her feel unsafe. He wanted to give her peace. Throw the stupid loud blonde out on his ass, and slam the door in his face. His night with her had been nothing short of blissful, but after all, and so had the morning, or at least it had until their unexpected visitor.
What kind of man forced himself on a woman like that? Steve sneered. A sorry excuse for one, that’s who.
“Asshole,” he muttered, swinging a leg over his motorcycle and getting off. He was in the parking lot of the hardware store that he had driven straight to after leaving Jordyn’s apartment. He could have waited to come here, but he hadn’t wanted to. So, he’d given into the urge to make sure Jordyn’s door would be fixed no matter what, but it was only after a step or two towards the store that Steve stopped and sighed at himself.
He knew the girl for less than nine hours and here he was, acting like a lovesick boy. The amount of times he’d thought of her on the short ride over to the store was sickening, and he scrubbed a hand over his face in annoyance.
“What the actual fuck am I doing?” he asked himself, walking into the store. He could pretend that he felt sorry for Jordyn, that she was a nice girl and he was doing his part to help her out. Just a little Good Samaritan action, right? Yes, he could tell himself that, but it didn’t explain away the way she made him feel. She made him feel...seen. Like her time with him mattered, that it was his touch she was after, and that if it hadn’t been him in her bed, it would have been all wrong for her the night before.
One night stands were normal. They were the sort of thing Steve reached for when he had an itch to scratch, but those nights had all been different. The women he was with could have been anyone, just the same as he could have been anyone to them. It had never needed to be him for them, but Jordyn.
No. That was different.
Steve knew she wouldn’t have wanted it if it hadn’t been him. And that made him feel a certain type of way. He didn’t know what, not yet, not this early but whatever it was, he didn’t like it. Feelings were dangerous. They made things complicated and messy. Feelings introduced the element of potential loss and that was...not ideal.
Steve had no intention of catching feelings for the girl he had slept with and never intended to see again past sunrise, so why the fuck was he standing in a hardware store aisle looking at new locks, and thinking about what her face might look like when she was happy. Or what her eyes might do when she was safe?
“I’m going soft,” he mumbled to himself as he selected the correct model for Jordyn’s front door.
“Can I help you find anything?”
He looked up from the box in his hand to see a pretty brunette with an eager smile on her face. She had a hand on her hip and from the slow way her eyes were moving over him, she liked what she was seeing and wasn’t shy about letting him see that she was checking him out. Steve stood up straighter. He was used to this from a woman, he knew what to do with this, and after his night with Jordyn, he could do with a little bit of the familiar.
“Not…with hardware,” he said, twirling the package in his hands with a returned look of interest.
“Oh? What else might I be able to offer you this morning?” She grinned and came closer. When she was a foot away, she stopped, but leaned closer to him. Her name tag was visible, but he didn’t bother to look at it.
That didn’t matter. Names didn’t matter.
“Thought I might leave that up to you.” He let his tongue drag across his bottom lip. The woman’s eyes tracked the movement and she took another step forward until her breasts were brushing against his arm. Steve didn’t move away, not even when he wanted to because this was what he wanted. This was what he was used to, and that made it what he deserved. It had to be. There was no other explanation for why it came so easily.
“I’m on my break in five minutes,” she breathed, reaching out a hand to lightly trace a finger along his arm.
Steve nodded and held up the lock set in one hand. “I’m going to buy this and smoke a cigarette outside.” He turned and walked toward the cashier, purchasing what he needed to fix Jordyn’s door, and left the store.
He had only lit up the cigarette when the door burst open behind him and the brunette was hurrying across the parking lot toward him. Steve took a drag of the cigarette and then flicked it away. He hated wasting it, but there was nothing to be done about it now. The woman’s apartment was just around the corner, maybe a minute or two at most on his motorcycle. The ride was quick, but she squealed so loudly and dug her fingers into him so hard one would have thought he was tearing across the city at top speed.
Jordyn hadn’t squealed or held on to him like she might fall. She had been calm, pressed close to him, hands steady on his sides, not making a sound even when he took the corners faster than he should have. He shook his head, chasing away the thoughts of Jordyn. Not her, not now when he was trying to find his center again.
He almost growled at himself in frustration that he was once again thinking of her for what felt like the hundredth time that morning since he left her apartment. With a deep breath, he tightened his grip on his motorcycle handles and focused on the brunette clinging to him. When they got to her apartment, things went just as he thought they might. The sex was what it was—not as good as with Jordyn—and when they were finished, it took him just as long to get himself together and walk out of the brunette’s apartment than it had for her to meet him outside the store.
And that, at least, had him feeling more like himself.
* * *
“Where were you last night?”
Steve looked up from penning a new idea for a tattoo in his notebook at the sound of his best friend’s question. Jamie Barstow stood to his right, leaning against the wall, looking at Steve with interest. The two were roommates, and despite Steve’s habit of spending his nights occupied, Jamie had never known him not to come home. Steve didn’t stay the night at a woman’s house. Ever.
