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“Right, of course. You should get going.” Finally, blessedly, her limbs got the move-it memo, and she stepped into her dress. Bree was absolutely Gavin’s number one priority, as she should be. No way was Sloane going to pretend otherwise.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, and the apology only hammered her resolve into place. She tried on a shaky smile.
“No. I should be the one apologizing. You know me, totally flighty. It wasn’t fair to drag you into something so impulsive.” She smoothed her palms over the thin straps of her dress twice, even though they were perfectly in place. Now where the hell was her purse?
Gavin jerked to a stop, his arms halfway through his crumpled T-shirt. “Is that what you think? That you goaded me into this?” He stared at her in the barely there light filtering in from the kitchen, clearly waiting for an answer.
For a ridiculous split second, Sloane wanted nothing more than to tell him no. Her devil-may-care attitude and the crazy vow she’d made to forget her troubles tonight had nothing to do with how much she wanted him.
But saying yes would get him out the door, and really, hadn’t she already screwed up his normally calm life enough tonight?
“Really, Gavin, it’s fine. I just got caught up in the moment, that’s all. No harm done.” Sloane smoothed a hand over her hair in an effort to hide her wince. The words tasted like a two-day hangover, but it was too late to take them back now. As much as she hated it, sticking to her retreat was best for both of them.
“I see,” he said, pulling his T-shirt all the way on with a solid yank. “Well, glad I could help you out with that.”
Ouch. Okay, so she might’ve earned that one. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just—”
“No, you’re right.” Gavin had his shirt buttoned and tucked in so fast, Sloane barely had time to blink. His tone harbored no heat; in fact, it didn’t harbor…well, anything.
Just like the rest of him.
“I should’ve kept my cool, and I didn’t. It was my mistake. Like you said, no harm, right?”
She nodded, her next word merely a whisper. “Sure.”
“Okay. See you Monday, then.”
12
Gavin drifted slowly, vague snapshots of black silk and sexy, sinful curves flickering through his memory in individual frames. Velvet laughter unspooled in his ear, and he reached out, wanting to kiss the lush, pink lips responsible for the sound and ravage them until they parted in a perfectOof needful surprise.
But then his hands landed on empty space and thoroughly rumpled covers. The sunlight stabbing past the blinds in his bedroom sent a rude good-morning jolt through him, an all-too-stark reminder that he’d spent the night alone.
“Shit.” Gavin jammed his eyes shut in self-defense, and the image in his mind’s eye scattered. For a moment, he wished hotly for it back, but then everything surrounding last night’s events tripped into place in a series of resounding thuds. The sheer, open joy on Sloane’s face as the wine delivered an obviously cherished memory from her palate to her brain…the feel of her skin, softer and more electric than the dress that covered it…wanting to please her, not for the primal satisfaction of it, but because he craved the sound ofhersatisfaction even more than his own.
And the harsh realization that everything that had happened between them was just her latest impulsive experiment. Come on, had he really fallen for that orgasm thing? It had probably just been the bow on top of the sure-why-not package, a bending of the truth that meant nothing more to her than a night of sinfully good rolling around.
“Doesn’t matter.” Gavin’s grumble fell flat against his pillow. The truth was, Sloane had no obligation to him other than to temporarily take care of Bree, and he’d hadn’t exactly discouraged the I-know-how-to-have-fun banter when he’d grabbed that bottle of Château Bellevue Mondotte from La Dolce Vita’s wine cellar. They were probably equal in the blame department. He really should just chalk it up to no harm, no foul.
Except that he couldn’t get her out of his head for all the grapes in Tuscany.
A quick glance at the clock told him he’d lingered in bed a lot longer than usual, and he threw back the covers with a start. He hadn’t slept past ten since before his mother had gotten sick, and the fact that he’d let himself do it today sat like a brick of unease in his gut. Going through the familiar motions soothed his nerves, and by the time he made it down the hall in search of coffee, he’d relegated the memory of that sexy black dress—and the woman who wore it—to the back of his mind.
His routine hit the skids as soon as he reached the kitchen.
“Whoa.” Gavin blinked, uncertain he was in the right house. A stainless steel skillet cooled over a dormant burner on the stove, empty save for some dregs of bacon grease streaking the bottom. Shells from a couple of eggs lay, cracked and discarded, on the butcher block, and a carton of orange juice stood crookedly next to them like a sentry gone askew. Bree sat, perched in one of the tall chairs at the counter of the breakfast nook, a single Airpod tucked beneath her sloppy ponytail and a piece of bacon halfway to her mouth.
“Did you…make breakfast?” His words were hushed by complete surprise, but she jumped anyway.
“Oh!” Bree silenced her cell phone with an abrupt flick and dropped the bacon back to her plate. “Um, yeah. I was hungry, and you were asleep. Sorry about the mess.”
Gavin shook his head, still trying to process it. “How long have you been up?”
“I don’t know. Not that long,” she said, shrugging a shoulder from beneath the ocean of her hooded sweatshirt.
“You’re dressed,” he pointed out, remorse seeping past his foggy shock. He should’ve set his alarm.
Another shrug, this one less pronounced. “So are you.”
