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Noemi slid slowly off the other side of the bed. Luckily there was a slant of light coming from the bathroom down the hall, telling her that Cason left the door open in invitation. She didn’t have to fumble to find the bedroom light. She didn’t ruin her legs or stub her toes and have to let out un-lady like curses all the way to the door and back. She flipped the switch, bundled up the bed, threw the pile on the floor and stood there, wondering where the hell the extra sheets were.
Probably down the hall. Didn’t everyone keep their extras in some tiny little, nearly useless, closed in smelling closet right next to the larger, darker, shadier closet where they kept all their skeletons?
She went on a search, telling herself she was just being paranoid. Cason was far more free with everything than she ever would have been, even after months of knowing someone, maybe even years. He made her feel at home in his house, even though he was virtually a stranger. He’d made her feel that way from the second she met. Like he was an old soul connected to her old soul in some strange cosmic pattern that she’d never be able to understand. She’d never felt that with anyone else. If anything, it was always the exact opposite, the sense of entire wrongness plaguing her well into the relationship until she felt panicked and edgy, like she needed to get away, but couldn’t quite figure out how. Trapped. That was the word she was looking for.
How was it possible that she felt more comfortable fumbling around in a stranger’s hallway in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but his admittedly huge t-shirt that hung down to her knees, her mysterious fire smothering, waffle making, pizza ordering not so white knight soaking in a tub only a few feet away, than she had the entire time she was with Rob?
The Completely. Naked. And. Totally. Gorgeous. Stranger?
Noemi ducked her head and tried the first narrow door she came to. She opened it and of course, there was a stack of folded sheets and towels, and even a few extra pillows inside.
She took out a bundle and made quick work of the bed. Her mom had been a stickler for keeping things neat. She was still allowed to be a kid and make messes, but she had to learn how to clean them up.
After, she walked down the hall and into the kitchen. The mess from that evening was still there, the spilled flour and the buttermilk sitting out on the counter, spoiled. The urge to clean it up was so strong that her fingers itched, but then she glanced at the spot on the counter where Cason had set her right before he turned her whole world upside down, and she scurried past, to the steps that she’d spotted earlier. They led to an unfinished basement that somehow wasn’t creepy, even with the concrete floors and open wood beams and insulation. She was correct in thinking they led to the laundry room.
She tucked the sheets in the washer, found the detergent, and got everything working.
Back upstairs, she hesitated in the kitchen for a few seconds before she scurried back down the hall. She paused just outside the bathroom door and when soft snores issued into the hall, she stepped around the door.
She wasn’t staring. She wasn’t creeping. She wasn’t… okay. She was. She was totally staring and creeping, and she was completely unashamed at both. Cason’s massive bronzed body would do that to anyone. His head thrown back against the edge of the tub, his eyelashes resting against his cheek, his lips slightly parted… he was gorgeous in a vulnerable sort of way that a strong man never was. The water and the edge of the tub hiding anything more than his broad, rippling shoulders and head, so that she felt like less of a Creepy McCreepington.
Just a shade less, but still.
She was trying to come up with a game plan, because sleeping in a bathtub wasn’t exactly safe and it would probably leave him with a horrible crink in his neck come morning, when one tropical blue eye popped open and those devastatingly wicked lips curled into a grin.
“So, you do want to join me after all.”
Noemi let out a snort and crossed her arms as she thrust out a hip against the doorjamb. “You’re an asshole. Straight up. You were faking it the whole time.”
Cason sat up so that the water sloshed in the tub and she was dangerously close to having her eyes come in contact with the same choice bits she’d decided to pleasure with her mouth earlier. She dropped her eyes to the floor in a hurry.
“You know that it’s physically impossible for someone my size to drown in a bathtub when I can’t even fit half of my body into it, right?”
