Because nothing like this could end in any way but disaster.
Despite all that though, I still leaned down and softened that wrinkle between her brow with my lips.
23
There was no bed quite like my bed back in Pine Ridge. We’re talking luxury bamboo bed sheets; silk pillow cases that never wrinkled; chemical-free, temperature-regulated fabrics; weighted blankets. The whole nine. Night-time routines were also a ritual: red light therapy at least twice a week, HydroStem serums, jade rollers.
I didn’t fold easily on any of those things. In fact, there were many nights back home that I told a little white lie to get out of a dinner with a guy or an invite from my colleagues for happy hour just so I didn’t sacrifice any “me” time. I needed to apply that eighty-dollar night cream that promised to keep the bags under my eyes from turning into raisins before I hit thirty.
Then I touched down in Florida, and suddenly I was sleeping in men’s boxer shorts on canvas couches with uncovered throw pillows. Willingly, I might add. And waking up with my daily contacts still stuck to my dried-out eyes.
No bed was like my bed.
It wasn’t possible.
But Frankie Casado’s came pretty damn close.
One sleep-crusted lid lifted and I peered out into the bedroom as I woke up, collecting my bearings. The clock beside the lamp on the oak nightstand said it was nine in the morning.
I yawned and stretched my legs as far down the bed as I could, sinking further into the soft mattress. Instead of getting up, I curled the blankets closer to my chest and inhaled them, breathing in the familiar scent of Frankie, who, at that moment, was probably thinking of a million and one polite ways to get me out of his sheets.
I fell asleep. Horny, wine-influenced Ophelia made a grand show of herself, and then exited the stage before the final act. We were so close. So fucking close. My skin still remembered his lingering touch. My lips twinged at the echo of us clashing. There were parts of me that ached for him, and only him now.
I sat up, comforter falling to my waist, my arms instinctually crossing over my bare chest. Only—that wasn’t the case at all.
I knew I’d fallen asleep naked. I knew that. The last recollection I had was convincing myself I could rest my eyes for the five minutes it took Frankie to find a condom. A quick power nap to refresh for a night of bliss with the handsome, hung pilot.
But as I looked down, Frankie’s white T-shirt from the night before was draped over my body, hanging nearly to the knees of his torn plaid pajama bottoms that sat on my hips.
He dressed me.
In his clothes.
I stared in disbelief. Where the fuck did this guy come from, and why on earth couldn’t it have been Pine Ridge, Colorado?
Heavy steps sounded outside the doorway a moment before it popped open, and a freshly showered Frankie traipsed inside, toweling off his long, wet hair. The cloth around his waist was hanging on by a thread. I could blow a gust of air as hard as I’d blow out some birthday candles and the thing would be cascading to the floor.
“Morning, sleepyhead.” He was carrying a mug of coffee in one hand, steam swelling from the top as he set it down on the bedside table.
“Is this for me?” I pointed to the mug, trying not to gape at his body.
“Of course.” He shrugged. “Sleep okay?”
“Great, actually.”
I felt like an idiot sitting there in his clothes, drinking the perfectly prepared cup of coffee he’d made me, gazing longingly at his happy trail that dipped beneath the towel, and not apologizing for attributing nothing to our mutual sexual agreement.
This was why my dating life was such a mess. I couldn’t even pretend to play the part.
“Did you sleep in this bed?” I asked. “With me?”
Frankie chuckled, opening and rooting through his closet across the room. “It’s my fucking bed, Ophelia. Of course I did.”
Heat flooded my cheeks. “About last night…”
“You snore,” he cut me off. “Like a grizzly bear.”
My jaw dropped open, simultaneously at his words and his toned, dimpled ass as he let go of the towel and replaced it with a pair of black boxer briefs.
“Heard a lot of grizzly bears snoring, have you?” I crossed my arms. “When I drink I get…nasally.”
Frankie mimicked what I perceived as the sound of a chainsaw revving to life.
“Fuck off.” I laughed, ripping the pillow from behind me and launching it toward him, pegging him right between the shoulder blades.
He turned to me with a grin, fluffing out a gray T-shirt before pulling it over his head.
All right, maybe he wasn’t as disappointed as I thought he’d be with how the night turned out. My nerves took a back seat as I sipped from my mug and he joined me on the bed.
“About last night,” he repeated. “I had a lot of fun.” A heated look crossed his face briefly. His gaze drifted over his clothes on my body, no doubt reimagining what was hidden beneath them. “I don’t have any expectations, O. You don’t owe me anything. Just know if you want it, I’m ready to give it.”
He somehow always knew exactly what to say. We never had an awkward moment, our personalities meshed, we finished each other’s sentences. Two cogs on the same wheel.
And had a man ever looked so good in his underwear?
His competency turned me on more than anything as pressure flared between my legs.
“Right.” I swallowed. “I do—want to be given it.”
My chance to make up for the night before presented itself. Miraculously the wine hangover was minimal, but the same willingness was still filtering through my bloodstream. I danced my fingers across the cap of his knee.
The corner of his mouth lifted, smugly. “In that case we’ll have to make a pitstop while we’re out shopping.”
He stood and crossed the floor to the window, jerking open the curtains and hitting me in the face with a burning beam of morning sunlight. I fell back onto the bed, groaning, and pulled the covers over my head.
“Oh no you don’t,” he chided. A second later my ankles were being gripped and dragged from beneath the blankets, my entire tired body following.
“It’s so early,” I complained as I came face to face with him at the edge of the bed. “I’m on vacation.”
“Cap and Tally won’t be out of their dungeon for hours, and I need your help.”
“With what?” The soft stubble on his face had grown a bit longer since we first met on the plane. The shadow of a beard made him look older and more angular; his jaw was so sharp already it could cut glass. I reached out and brushed my finger down his chin. Call me easily distracted.
“Should I shave?”
“No, I like.”
“Good.”
I dragged the same finger down his throat to a maroon, Rorschach looking blot next to his Adam’s apple. My eyes flickered up. Frankie’s hooded gaze was already pinned to my lips like he was identifying the culprit.
“I wouldn’t have pegged you as a biter,” he said in that gritty, not remotely suitable for nine a.m. on a Wednesday, bedroom voice.
My skin pebbled, and a twist of lust made itself known between my legs again. “I never was,” I admitted quietly.
A tortured, unmissable grunt filtered from his throat. He pinched my bottom lip between two fingers and tugged on it. “This mouth is gonna get me in trouble. Because if you don’t get out of my bed right now, I’m gonna fuck it. And if that happens, we won’t be leaving this room until the sun sets again. Then my poor mother and sister will have to wonder why they didn’t get a gift from me for Christmas…and that will be all your fault, Ophelia.”