My eyes catch on his, and the sincerity there stuns me silent.
So silent that I watch him step out of the tub, replace his towel around his waist, and leave me there without another word.
27
Beau
I don’t wake up screaming for once.
But I wake up with phantom burning pains. My first thought is that this is an improvement. My second thought is that it’s 2:11 a.m. and Bailey didn’t come to my room.
I should be happy I seem to be improving, even if my healed feet feel like they’re sizzling against a hot grill beneath the covers.
But all I can think about is Bailey. The girl I’m supposed to be helping, not playing games with.
I saw her today. The way she looks at me. How easily she told me she trusts me.
She shouldn’t.
And I shouldn’t have taken as much trust as I did. Said the things I did.
I thought about marching across the hall and dragging her into my bed. It kills me to know she’s right there, yet just beyond my reach. It kills me to know there’s an expiration date on our arrangement. But there needs to be, because I’ve gotten myself in far deeper than I ever should have. I’ve taken my hero complex to unseen levels.
This mission I backed myself into is beyond compromised, and she has no idea.
I scrub at my face and roll up to sitting, turning to press my feet against the cool floor. It does nothing to stop the burning sensation on my feet or the roiling in my stomach. I basically promised her a next time when I shouldn’t have. I know I should keep her at a distance, but I wish she was in my bed, not alone in hers after what we just did. I want the “next time” to be right now.
How fucked-up am I? I’m hot and cold. I say left and go right.
I tell a girl who needs help getting a job that her pussy is mine now, like I’m some sort of over-the-top obsessive caveman.
She makes me feel like I am.
I’m so lost in thought that I don’t even hear her approach. She rushes into my room without knocking. Tiny shorts, an even tinier tank top, and totally disheveled hair. “I’m so sorry! You orgasmed me stupid, and I forgot to set my alarm.”
Hands propped on the edge of the bed, chin almost against my chest, I laugh silently. My shoulders shake, and the laughter comes out as a soft whoosh of air.
“Oh my god, Beau.” She rushes forward, falling onto her knees at my feet. “Are you cry—” Her eyes widen when she gets a read on me in the dark room. “Are you laughing? I thought you were crying!” She slaps my knee.
I bring one hand up, pressing my fingers into my eye sockets. “The shit you say sometimes. I never know what’s going to come out of your mouth.”
“You scared me!”
“Did you really say I orgasmed you stupid?”
She glances away, biting at her lips, clearly to keep from laughing too. “Well,” she says primly, glancing down to brush at her shorts. “It’s true. You did. And I was sleeping like the dead because of it.”
I go to reach for her, but drop my hand back down on the bed. “I shouldn’t have just walked away after that. I’m just not used to … I haven’t done this before.”
She smiles, turning big, dark eyes up at me. Giving me a flash of how she might look on her knees, staring up at me with a mouth full of my cock.
I shake my head and blink the image away.
“Been engaged? Yeah, me neither.” She waves a hand dismissively through the space between us. “It’s okay. I didn’t expect you to stick around.”
There’s no trace of hurt in her voice, no thread of a lie. She didn’t expect me to stick around after being intimate with her, and that realization is like a steel-toed boot to the gut.
“Did you have the bad dream?” She carries on like what she just said to me isn’t infuriating.
“Bailey, don’t let men take advantage of you and expect nothing in return,” I grumble.
She leans back a little, taken aback by the abrupt change in my demeanor, no doubt. “Is that what you did, Beau? Take advantage of me? Sure didn’t feel like it. Felt like I asked you for something and you gave it. And then we high-fived and parted ways.”
“We didn’t high-five.”
“If I’d been able to move, I’d have high-fived you.”
“Good god, Bailey.”
“Listen, I know you’re hung up on treating me like a porcelain doll because I’m a virgin, but I think you’re mixing up my expectations with your expectations. What happened tonight was consensual. I don’t feel taken advantage of just because we’re doing this thing for show.”