Page 7 of Easy On Me

“You’re confident.”

I fixed her with a look before jerking my attention back to the asphalt and the yellow lines. She felt the energy between us, too. Once would not be enough.

Her quiet laugh shimmered over me. “I think I’ve got three.”

Dear Lord. I swallowed, my mouth dry.

With Teddy Swims singing about losing control – I was right there with him – I made a couple more turns and pulled into the drive of Grandma and Grandaddy’s. No, my house now, although it still felt like theirs, with the bedroom the only room with much of my stuff in it. Grandma had offloaded furniture, decor, dishes, everything on me so she could get new stuff and not move the old.

I’d resisted Elizabeth for months when it came to renovating, decorating, moving in with me. Think I’d already known then we wouldn’t make it.

She’d been livid. We’d fought half the summer and all fall about it. The more she pushed, the harder I dug in and refused to budge. Man, all the red flags we’d been together.

In the carport, I killed the engine and stared at the painted siding there, a single cobweb in the upper right-hand corner blowing in the breeze.

“I don’t like to be held down, so don’t even try.” Her cool voice jerked me out of my nervous contemplation of Charlotte’s web.

Askance, I looked at her. “Why would I–”

“And if I blow you, I won’t be on my knees.”

Holy shit, is this how people did this?

She released her seat belt. “You have any no-gos?”

I swallowed. “Um . . . no.”

Brows lifted, she shrugged and pushed the door open before I could reach for mine.

Snatching up my keys, I scrambled to meet her at the hood. “I’d have come around to open that for you.”

“Not you, too,” she muttered, taking in the carport. Her shoulders straightened to a stiff line. “I don’t need anyone to open a door for me.”

Well, technically, she did because the back door was locked. Keeping that to myself, I opened the storm door and stuck the key in the lock. Pushing the door inward, I propped the storm door with my hip and waved toward the kitchen. With a sharp look, she stepped by me into the kitchen, where the fluorescent light over the sink cast a too-white glow.

“Want something to drink?” I nudged the door shut with my foot.

“No.” The glance she shot over her shoulder matched that droll monosyllable. Her lips twisted in a wry expression. “Your decorating style screams grandma.”

“Because I bought the place from my grandparents and she left everything.”

She leaned on the kitchen table, and images popped off in my head, of tugging those snug jeans down her thighs, dropping between them and–

“Are we about to fuck in your grandparents’ bed?”

“No. Lord, no.” I shuddered. “The bedroom furniture is mine.”

With a low laugh, she shoved off the table and trailed a finger across my chest. “Well, show me the way.”

Eagerness pulsing under my skin, I caught her hand, a tingling sensation running up my forearm with the contact, and strode through the den to the hall, all the way down to the master bedroom.

The floral bedside lamps highlighted the deep green carpet and thick dusky pink drapes.

Tyler paused, studying the dark wood dressers. “You picked this furniture?”

“Okay, the mattresses are new.”

Sauntering into the room to sit on the foot of the bed, she pulled off her boots. I toed out of my driving mocs.