F （6:40 PM）： Apart from being dark and dramatic . . . what makes a man your type? What is eventually going to make a man The One?
H （6:43 PM）： I think . . . if they can find a reason to laugh with me on the worst day.
F （6:44 PM）： That sounds like the opposite of your type.
H （6:45 PM）： It does, doesn’t it? Must be the wine.
H （6:48 PM）： He’ll need to have a cabinet full of records and something to play them on, of course.
F （6:51 PM）： Well obviously.
Record collecting wasn’t an interest he’d enjoyed before they met last summer. Him buying albums now was pertinent information. Where was he keeping them? And if he was hiding them from her . . . what else was he hiding?
Either he didn’t want Hannah reading too much into his new collection or there was a lot to read into it and he needed more time before admitting that.
Unless, of course, she was completely nuts and he was just a dude who’d forgotten about buying a few albums. But for a man who never purchased anything for his apartment, wouldn’t they have stood out? Been remarked on by now?
Lube had been a main topic of interest, but not a stack of vinyls?
Let’s say, hypothetically, he’d started collecting records because he had a low-key interest in being Hannah’s type. Never mind that her knees trembled over that possibility. How far did his interest go? She didn’t know. But the same intuition that had led to calling their relationship “serious” was buzzing now. Telling her to wait, to be patient, to stay the course with Fox.
That if he was hiding records, he was hiding a desire to be . . . more.
Despite his assurances of the opposite.
Deep in thought, Hannah carefully wedged the new albums she hadn’t been able to resist under one arm and let herself into the apartment. When she walked inside, she was immediately greeted by the spicy scent of aftershave—and when Fox walked out of his bedroom in dark jeans and a slate-colored button-down, she knew.
He was going on a date.
Hannah’s stomach plummeted to the floor.
Chapter Fifteen
Fox was going to see his mother.
He always found out on short notice when she was working in the vicinity of Westport. If Fox wasn’t on the water, he always jumped, because he never knew when she’d be back again. He’d definitely been a little disappointed when Charlene called to say she’d be in Hoquiam for the night, because going to see his mother meant he wouldn’t be home with Hannah.
Hannah, who had slept in his bed last night, her tight little butt in his lap for a good two hours somewhere in the middle of it all. She’d barely walked out his front door this morning before he rolled onto his back, gripped his cock, and came after six strokes. Six. It usually took him a good five minutes, at least. He’d thought of Hannah during every one of those six strokes. Same way he had every time since last summer. Only now, she wasn’t just the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about. She was the girl who flat-out refused to fuck him.
And goddammit. Now she walked into the apartment, clothes damp and clingy from the rain, and there he went, thinking about being inside her again. Picturing her bowed back, her mouth open on a cry of his name, the slap of flesh on flesh. Stop it, you bastard.
Until recently, Fox had never fantasized about anyone specific while beating off.
A body was just a body.
But in his fantasies with Hannah, their minds were in sync as well as their physical selves. They laughed as often as they moaned. Even thinking of their fingers gripped together, the trust in her eyes, added to the insane pleasure. Imagining himself inside Hannah felt great. Better than great. His orgasms were more satisfying by leaps and bounds.
And that scared the holy shit out of him.
Fox was distracted from his troubling thoughts when Hannah stopped short just inside the door, framed in the lazy rainstorm, her face going from thoughtful to dismayed. Sad, even? “Oh,” she said, giving him a once-over. “Oh.”
He tried valiantly to ignore the pounding in his chest. Jesus, it got louder and harder to manage every time they were in the same room. For the longest time, he’d thought if they just slept together, it would go away. This twisting, hot, melting, spearing sensation she inspired in him with a blink of her eyes. He’d feel shitty afterward for jeopardizing their friendship, but at least it would be over and he could stop obsessing about her so much. Now he was beginning to seriously doubt anything would work.
“Hello to you, too,” he said, voice sounding strained.
“Sorry, I just didn’t expect— I . . .” She dropped the bag she was holding underneath her arm, jolted, then stooped down to pick it up. “You’re going on one.”