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Damn him. He was getting me all riled up and then acting innocent, huh? Well, two could play that game.
I walked over to the bar and bent over it, not bending my knees, giving Pike the perfect view of my ass in my tight jeans. I heard him make a startled, strangled noise behind me, like he was trying not to let out a groan, and I grinned to myself.
I straightened up and walked back over. “Yup, we’re all good!”
“You’re going to be the death of me,” Pike noted as we walked out and I flipped off the last of the light switches, locking the door behind me. I didn’t have a key, I just flipped the inside lock on the door handle, so if I forgot something inside I was screwed until the owner came in to check it in the morning.
“Oh, if only,” I replied, teasing him.
Pike offered his arm. “May I walk you to your car?”
It was things like this that had made him so fucking charming to me growing up—and now, if I was honest. Pike walked around in beat-up grunge jeans and a leather jacket and had a massive tattoo on his chest but he also offered to walk me to my car and opened doors for me and picked people up from the side of the road to get them home after a bad date.
“Of course.” I took his arm and let him walk me, even though the parking lot was empty. It was just our two cars—since my parents were out of town, they’d taken my dad’s, and I got to use Mom’s to go to work. I could technically bike to work but they both felt safer if I used a car, since it was night and they didn’t want me to get run over by someone drunk driving who didn’t see me in the dark.
“I’ll see you there,” I told him, quickly pulling away as Pike leaned in to kiss me.
Pike pouted. “You’re an awful tease, Billie Adams.”
“You say that like I don’t put out or something.” I pouted right back at him. “I think you’re just spoiled, Pike Transcom.”
“You’re the kind of girl who spoils a man. One taste and I get all greedy for you.” He winked at me but backed away. “I’ll see you at your house, gorgeous.”
My stomach, no, my spine, no my entire body, was thrumming with anticipation as I pulled up to my house and parked the car in the garage. Pike probably could’ve gotten there ahead of me in his car, but he followed me home the whole way and parked down the street, walking the rest of the way. I hadn’t even asked him to. It was another way he was considerate—I knew that he didn’t like hiding this any more than I did, probably even less than I did, but he thought to park down the street so that nobody would notice the strange car (or rather, Pike Transcom’s car) in front of my house and gossip about it.
I quickly rushed upstairs to change out of my work clothes (ugh) and into one of the soft flannel pajama shorts that I liked to wear around the house, along with an oversized t-shirt. I took my hair out of its ponytail (no way was I getting beer in it at work) and brushed it out, and washed my face, generally just freshening myself up.
Pike knocked on the door right as I finished and I hurried back downstairs to open it for him. He had just seen me at work and been willing to have sex with me then, had danced with me and found me sexy then, but I still was nervous. I still wanted to make myself look a little nicer, a little more inviting for him.
“Hi,” I said as I opened the door, suddenly feeling all of sixteen again, shy and blushing, unsure in the face of the boy that I liked.
It was fucking ridiculous, of course. We were already dating. But it was so close to the situation back when I had been a teenager, when Pike had been my brother’s best friend and he would come over, looking all handsome and out of my league. I would try not to race to open the door for him, just so that I could say hi to him before he went to the backyard or Morgan’s room and I couldn’t talk to him anymore because, well, what would I even talk to him about.
Pike grinned at me and stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “Look at you, all soft and adorable.”
“Me? Soft? I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
Pike settled his hands at my hips and pulled me in. “I think you are soft. For the right person.”
I didn’t answer that, but I looped my arms around his neck, and I was pretty sure that was answer enough for him.
