He stood with his back to her as he unbuckled his belt and took off his jeans to show sexy boxer briefs, and then casually turned and walked to the bed, lifted the covers and sheets, and slid in. As if he’d been in her bed before. As if he was invited. As if he belonged there.
“I bought a new bed and new mattress, after Mike.” Gen’s face went hot and her heart stopped as she realized what she was saying and once again castigated herself for drinking so much rum tonight.
“Go to sleep now, Beautiful.” He stayed on his back, but pulled her into his side and held her. Gen lay frozen, not sure what to do, but he only stroked her hair, almost absentmindedly, until she relaxed and fell asleep.
* * * *
Gen awoke as the sky was just beginning to light outside her window. The master bedroom gave her beautiful sunsets, but no sunrises, which was fine because she wasn’t a morning person. She looked around, trying to figure out why she was awake, and her gaze landed on Duke beside her, his eyes open.
“You seem more like Duke this morning than Keith.”
He gave a lazy half-smile and asked, “How you figure, Beautiful?”
“I don’t know. Somehow in my drunken logic last night, I realized you’re the same person but a different man. Duke fits you better than Keith, now.”
“You know how I got the nickname?”
“I can guess. Probably because you fought a lot?”
He nodded. “Yeah, good with my fists, prone to wanting to duke it out rather than talk it out.”
“This isn’t right, Duke. It’s too intimate, waking up together. Too soon.”
He reached towards her, his movements slow, and he pushed a few strands of hair away from her face before bringing his hand back to himself, no longer touching her. Gen’s heart beat faster at his touch, and then beat even faster as she realized she wanted him to keep touching her once he withdrew his hand.
“My beautiful Gen, I’ve decided I’m gonna have to prove to you I can be trusted. And when I say you can trust me, I mean in all ways. Trust me to take care of you, to protect you, to be careful with you, and to follow through on my promises. Now, you want breakfast? If you have the ingredients I need, I make killer pancakes.”
“Is fixing me pancakes part of taking care of me?”
“Yes, Beautiful. Also, I’m starving, so it’s me taking care of myself. I’m hoping you have bacon or sausage or steaks down there, too.”
“There’s half a beef in the freezer in the pantry. I pulled a steak out yesterday and put it in the fridge. Your choice of using the already thawed steak, or getting something from the freezer and nuking it. My microwave has a good defrost setting, scales are in the drawer under the microwave; just tell the microwave how much it weighs.”
“You have plans today?”
Gen nodded. “I’m meeting a couple at one, will probably take the better part of the afternoon. They have a little over a mil, and can’t decide whether to buy land and build, or buy something already available. They’d prefer the latter, but will deal with the former if I can’t find them something they like.”
“I want to take you to dinner tonight. What time works for you?”
“If we’re going to make this work, you’re going to have to understand I can’t always give times. I may show them one house, they fall in love with it, we make an offer, and I’m done for the day. Or, I may show them houses until five, and then feed them as we discuss what they liked and didn’t, and figure out our next step.”
“Fair enough, Beautiful. If you’re done with them before five, text me when you’re done. If not, text me somewhere around five and let me know how you think the rest of the day will go. I won’t hold you to it, but it’ll give me an idea. That work?”
Gen smiled in relief. “Yes, that works. Give me a thirty minute window, as I prefer to handle texting when I can step away to give them privacy to talk, so it’s about them and not about me.”
Duke caressed her cheek and said, “Not a lot of ways to live in a three-quarter of a million dollar house when you’re twenty-nine, and most of those involve going to the dark side. You found a way to do it and keep your innocence. Your purity.”
She shook her head. “My competition won’t agree with you. I play dirty, Duke. I hire people to do research for me, I know everything about a client and their people before I make the first phone call, and I learn even more before the second. When I walk into a meeting, I’ve stacked the deck in my favor ahead of time. Sometimes I even buy the land through one of my umbrella corporations, but no one in the room knows, which isn’t technically against the law, but goes against the code of ethics. I may not do anything outright illegal, but I’ve skirted the edges more than once, and I’ve done a lot that isn’t exactly moral.”