I shot Calvin a wide-eyed look that I hoped she interpreted as,The fuck is going on with this guy?I read her answerin' look as,Not my problem. He's your friend.
I leaned down to whisper in her ear. "A little over a month and we're already communicatin' with just a look." I pulled back and shot her a wink that she returned with an eye roll—and a smile she tried to hide.
"Hey Hank!" I shouted. He turned my way and flipped me the bird. Calvin cackled.
Rhett stood so quickly, I all but fell into Calvin's lap.
"Hey, baby," I said, waggling my brows at her.
Rhett sneered at us. "I'm out."
He stormed toward the door without another word.
"What the hell happened?" I asked Calvin, takin' Rhett's vacated seat.
Hank dropped a glass full of bright red liquid in front of me. "Shirley Temple. Enjoy."
He walked away and I slowly turned to Calvin who had tears trackin' down her cheeks, she was laughin' so hard. "D'you do this? Think you're funny?"
I reached over to tickle the shit outta her. "Brody, stop!" she shrieked over her laughter. "I'm going to pee!"
"Alright, you're cut off. Let's go." I stood and threw her over my shoulder, firefighter style. She laughed her ass off—the one I slapped a few times on our trek—the entire way up to the apartment.
The stairs were a narrow and steep death trap, same as they'd always been, and somewhere between the third and fourth step I had a flash of the last time I'd been here with Calvin. Except that time I'd been five whiskeys deep and desperate and she'd been a stranger with a septum ring who looked at me like she could eat me alive.
She still looked at me like that.
But now I knew—maybe not the whole story, but enough. Now it meant somethin' different entirely. Now I was so goddamn gone for this woman it scared the shit outta me on a daily basis. Because she could load up her truck any ol' day she felt like it and be three states away by sundown. And there wasn't a thing in the world I could do about it.
I gave my brain a quick scold for thinkin' the worst and kept climbin'.
When I made it to the top, I twisted the knob with my free hand and set Calvin down just inside the door. She stumbled into me, still gigglin', catchin' herself with both hands flat on my chest. I kicked the door shut behind us. The apartment was dim—just the lamp I'd left on in the corner throwin' everything gold.
"Hi," she said, tippin' her face up.
"Hi yourself." I walked her backward toward the couch, and she went easy—fingers curlin' into my shirt as her tongue swiped out to wet her bottom lip before she sank her teeth into it. Goddamn, I needed my mouth on hers like I needed my next breath. The backs of her knees hit the arm of the couch and she grabbed my collar to keep from goin' over. I caught her weight, both of us laughin', breathless, and somewhere in the fumblin', her mouth found mine and the laughin' stopped.
It was nothin' like the first time and exactly like it, all at once.
Clothes went fast—hers first, then mine, hands and mouths and the occasional elbow until she was bent over the arm of the couch, her back a long, sexy line in the lamplight. I was pressed against her from behind, cock hard enough to pound nails, with my hand wrapped around both her wrists at the small of her back.
I nudged her feet wider with mine.
"Brody." A warning and an invitation wearing the same word.
I pressed forward, sinking inside her tight, wet, warm pussy and?—
"Oh, fuck." I went still. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Calvin looked over her shoulder at me. "Problem?"
"Condom. I forgot a?—"
"IUD." She held my gaze. "And I'm clean."
Somethin' short-circuited in my brain. "I'm clean, too. I've only ever—" I stopped. She knew. There'd only been Sassy. And her. "I'm clean."
"Then what the hell are you waiting for?"
