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I nod. “I’ve seen some from start to finish and others not at all. Like Game of Thrones. Never seen, but I’ve read the books.”
“We have to fix that, then. If I’m up to reliving the soul-crushing angst.”
I slide down off the bed behind her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as we shuffle toward the kitchen. “You pick the show. I’ll watch anything but the Kardashians.” I give her a sideways smile.
“No reality TV for you?”
I shake my head.
“It’s not my thing so much either. Would you eat cake if I wanted to make one?”
“I guess if I had to,” I sigh, and Gwenna bumps my shoulder. More my arm, really, given our height difference.
“I was thinking you could get another hour of sleep before we really go to sleep. For me, if I’m less tired, I snap out of it quicker.” It meaning nightmares, I assume.
“Been thinking on it?”
“Yeah.” Her cheeks flush as we walk behind the couch. “You can tell me to shut up. You heard the Myers-Briggs. I’m the…advocating type.” She winces, and I chuckle.
“What does this have to do with cake?”
She slides me a guilty look. “I thought the sugar might make you sleepy.”
I can’t help a low hoot. “Gwenna…” I laugh as she hangs her head.
“Go on,” she says, looking rueful. “Tell me to bug off.”
I wrap my hands around her waist and pull her back against me, kissing her neck. I groan as my cock swells against her lower back. “Please don’t.”
I shut my eyes as I hold her to me. The sweet scent of her shampoo seems to fuzz my senses. Somewhere very far away, I hear my conscience urging me to get away from her, but it’s too late now. Those stern words are whispered. Her body is so soft and warm. Her hands are careful, gentle, reaching back around to stroke from my hips down my thighs. Illogically, they seem to know me. What I need and what I like.
“Gwen…” Her fingers reach for my dick.
“Yes?” The word soft and sinuous.
I blink at her coppery hair as words rise up within me. They float to the bottom of my throat, and I can’t seem to let them out. My mind is racing. Pulse is racing. Gwenna’s hands are smooth on my pants. My cock is squeezed between our bodies. How do I tell her? And I realize that I can’t. I can tell her nothing, so I whisper, “That feels good.”
TWENTY THREE
BARRETT
On the kitchen floor, with the lights on and the TV droning in the background, I come faster than I ever have, and she is right behind me, laughing. I laugh too. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter.
Afterward, I wash our dinner plate as Gwen lines up bowls and utensils for making something she calls Guinness cake.
I arch my brows, skeptical, and she tells me all about the beer-based layered cake and how to make it, pulling ingredients from the pantry and the refrigerator and assembling them on the counter like a little army.
I can’t help admiring her from every angle. The way her hair shines like a penny when she turns her head. The awkward way she lifts her shoulder to try to scratch her cheek while her hands are flour-covered. I watch her hands bend as she cracks eggs into a bowl. I think about her fingers on my face.
I think about us in her bed. Me in her bed.
I think about my bedroom at my last spec ops base. Maybe because it was about the same size as her little kitchen. I used to always wonder why the ceilings and the walls in that place were so fucking ugly, this gray-brown color that made you feel like you were in a file cabinet drawer. My bed there was too small. I remember turning on my side and covering my head and curling up and wanting to feel…real. No one knew how dead I was.
I look at Gwenna, and I try to remember how her hands feel on me. Did she really ever touch me, though? I’m just a watcher; almost never touched. I look at my left hand and it’s shaking. All the fingers. They can’t move, but they can all still shake.
Gwenna pours the batter into a pan. As soon as she’s finished, she turns and takes my hands. She squeezes them and looks into my eyes. Hers are dark and knowing. A small notch forms between her eyebrows as she tilts her head, her face impassive in her quiet assessment, her hands still holding mine firmly.
“Can you finish this for me?” Her eyes gesture to the cake over her shoulder. “One of the egg shells cut my hand.”
