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“Is that plant real?”
She shut the door. “Yes. I’ve had it since high school.”
Feeling closed in, he moved to the far corner of the wall and looked at the picture in the frame. “Where’s this?”
“I don’t know. I cut it out of a magazine.”
The photograph was of a desert cliff. He set it back on her dresser and turned. She stared at him, still in her funeral clothes, looking small and fragile.
“I feel like I missed something,” he confessed.
“Don’t you want…” She glanced at the bed. “I thought you said…”
“I said I missed you. I didn’t come over here for sex.” He also didn’t expect sex to be offered. Now that it was, though… His neck heated and he worried he’d somehow messed this up. “What if we watched a movie or something?”
“Okay.” She sat on the double bed and pointed a remote at the television mounted to the wall. A menu of streaming channels appeared. “What do you want to watch?”
He walked to the bed, toed off his shoes and sat beside her. “Something funny.”
They settled on the movie Step Brothers with Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. Erin never saw it before and he found that strange, being that the movie was more than a decade old.
“I never miss anything Will Ferrell’s in. Even Bewitched, which was a total flop, but I still watch it on occasion. The man is a comedic genius.”
He scooted closer to her, stealing a subtle whiff of her hair and loving the soft scent of her skin. The movie started, jumping quickly into a sex scene with Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins.
He glanced at Erin to see if she was amused with the opening, but she only lifted her brows. He’d never met a woman so guarded. It was a challenge to make her laugh or even crack a smile.
It took five minutes for the mounting pressure of the plot to penetrate her icy stare and she finally broke when Jenkins told Reilly to “shut the fuck up.”
Erin’s laughter was like a soft rain after a long drought, and he drank it in. Her smile lit up the entire room.
“You have a great laugh.”
Her mouth snapped shut and she self-consciously pressed a finger to her lips.
“Pretty smile, too.” He pulled her hand away.
The shyest grin lingered on her full lips, tempting and far too beautiful. He loved this movie, but over the next two hours, he found himself mostly watching her.
The sex scenes were silly, but they made him extremely aware of his desire for the woman at his side. His gaze chased down the black stockings covering her legs, and he found himself mesmerized by her tiny feet.
Her dress was plain, sleeveless and black, with a little ruffle at the hem. She looked as classy as Jackie Onassis at the cemetery today. Stoic. Strong.
His hand reached for hers, his fingers feathering over her palm and entwining until their palms closed together. She looked down at his hand holding hers but didn’t pull away.
He smiled, turning his attention back to the movie.
Little by little, Erin leaned into him until she was cuddled snug against his side. She didn’t make it to the credits. Her soft breathing and loose limbs alerting him that she’d fallen asleep. She was probably exhausted after the week she had.
When the movie ended, he quietly shut off the television and lowered her to the pillows. He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Get some sleep.”
She moaned softly and snuggled into her blankets. “Stay.”
He debated her request. His body pulsed with wanting, but that wasn’t the sort of company she needed right now. Yet, part of him really wanted to spend the night with her, even if all he ever did was hold her. Her invitation filled him with warm satisfaction, somehow penetrating deeper than any sort of sexual desire.
It was an easy yes.
He removed his sweater and draped it over the chair in the corner. Looking back at her, still in her dress and stockings, he went to the bed and gently pulled her up.
“Let me help you out of this.” She leaned into him as he slowly unzipped the back of her dress.
The bodice draped loosely from her shoulders and he pulled it away. Her eyes were hardly open as she watched him through her lashes, lifting her hips as he stripped off the garment.
Leaving her on the bed, in just her bra and stockings, he found a hanger and hung the dress in the closet. He returned to the bed and considered her stockings. He didn’t wear stockings, so he had no experience getting them off.
When he pulled the material away from her hip, it snapped back and he laughed nervously. “Sorry. Slippery things.”
She lifted her hips again and he peeled them away, revealing a simple pair of black satin bikini briefs to match her black bra. He set the stockings on the chair and removed his pants and socks, stripping down to his underwear.
