Christmas in Coconut Creek (Dirty Delta, #1)(62)
Frankie took a seat next to me on the floor in front of the coffee table and I nudged him playfully.
“I like your pjs,” I said. “Classic. Timeless.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” He leaned over, whispering. His fingers walked a trail from my knee to the hem of my cotton shorts. “I actually sleep naked.”
My skin lit up where he touched it. Like candle wax searing into me. Blaming it on the wine was a cop-out—I barely had a buzz yet. The implications of the night weren’t lost on either of us. I could feel it like a layer of dust in the air. This was all fun, wine, popcorn, and games until bedtime. When Mateo and Nat waddled off to their sound studio and Frankie and I were left to fill in each other’s blanks. My nerves were on edge, despite how casual the hooking up was meant to be. It hadn’t been as long for me as it was for Frankie, but I was still out of practice and the pressure to satisfy him loomed.
What happened in the truck was just as much for me as it was for him. A way to test the waters and boost my confidence. Judging by his reaction, we were both just as dazzled by each other’s sexual prowess. Maybe I could be the girl who demanded what she deserved and never let a man know my next move. More spontaneity, less domesticity.
I fingered the button on my pajama shirt. “Even with a stranger in your bed?”
“Especially with her in my bed.”
I pushed Frankie’s tumbler of amber alcohol toward him, and with unspoken understanding, we clinked our drinks together and downed the remaining liquid.
22
Two-and-a-half glasses of wine. That’s how much alcohol it took to get Ophelia Brody so tipsy she started cheating at Scattergories.
She leaned into my shoulder more when she laughed, and her lips lingered on the rim of her glass when she smiled. Her words came out slower and in a deeper, sexier baritone that for whatever reason crept up my spine and vibrated like live wire.
That’s a good voice, I thought. One I wouldn’t mind hearing on a late-night phone call, long distance. One I’d never delete out of my voicemail just so I could go back and rehear it.
But those weren’t things I was supposed to be thinking while I sat next to her on the carpet, sneaking as many secret looks as I could at the way the fireplace brought out the hidden auburn in her hair. I wasn’t supposed to be committing her favorite wine to memory, or remembering her siblings’ names, or spending my entire lunch break researching the best hiking trails in Colorado so I could save them in the notes on my phone, just in case.
None of these things were supposed to be happening, but I was in too deep to swim back to shore. Parts of me knew Ophelia was right there with me, but neither of us had the guts to fight the tide and save ourselves from fucking drowning.
For the first time in over three years, I didn’t even get a knot in my stomach when someone alluded to Vanessa.
Hell, Ophelia had uncovered a box of the pathetic fucking love letters I’d sent to her from overseas that I should have taken fire to the minute we ended things. As soon as I found out everything I was too naive and in love to see coming.
I should have been angry when I caught her snooping. That was the justified emotion. But, in actuality, I felt relief. Relief because it meant the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about was thinking about me, and my life, and my past, and my tours, and the shit that made me a thirty-five-year-old bachelor with a roommate and a season pass to Butterflyland.
I wanted her to ask me. Because for some reason, I wanted to tell her everything. Unload all the things I’d been holding onto for so long like she was a time capsule and it didn’t matter what I said, or how ridiculous it sounded. In two weeks it would be buried and anyone else that found it wouldn’t fucking understand anyway.
At the end of the day, that’s what we were doing, right? Using each other. I just had to keep reminding myself of that.
Three glasses of wine in, and Ophelia was going at it with Mateo like they’d known each other all their lives, throwing popcorn across the table at him, deducting points for his spelling mistakes, quizzing him on all facts about Tally as a distraction.
But then that became the game. I would ask a question, and Ophelia and Mateo would write their answer down with a mini pencil on their sheet of paper. Tally would shout the answer, and her boyfriend and best friend would reveal theirs. We were all laughing, the drinks were flowing, and by the end of it, Ophelia had stamped Mateo with her personal seal of approval—which meant more to him than she’d ever know.
No one knew where the hours had gone when the credits rolled on the third movie. The wine opener sat next to a pile of discarded corks on the table and the four of us lay happily drunk on the couch in our pajamas.
I felt satiated. As weird as that sounded. There was nothing else I could have wanted out of my night. The beast of lust that always rumbled and growled around Ophelia had settled to a contented purr. Still easily awoken, but much less aggressive.
She folded herself into my side like it was the most natural thing in the world, and I could tell that sleep wasn’t too far off. On the other side of us Tally was already out cold, slung across her boyfriend’s lap.
“I’m gonna take her to bed, guys,” Mateo whispered. “Few too many for my girl.”
Ophelia smiled softly as he stood with Tally in his arms bridal style and blew the hair falling over her forehead out of her eyes.