He crossed his arms and glowered at her—still gloriously naked. And she couldn’t look away from the work of art he was. Black ink swirled all over his chest, and arms, and he had one tattoo right below his belly button. A red dragon. It was her favorite one. “I haven’t even said anything yet. How do you know what I’m think—?”
“You don’t need to say anything. I can see it all over your face.” She stalked toward the bathroom, needing to get away from him for a few minutes. He was still looking at her as if she was a fragile thing that couldn’t handle a night in his arms, and it was annoying. “Believe it or not, I’ve had sex before. I’ve even had one-night stands. I’m not going to cry or accuse you of sullying my good name, or suddenly think you’re in love with me because you gave me some orgasms. And I’m definitely not about to fall at your feet like the rest of the girls you slept with, because you had me once—and now I have to have more. So knock it off, and stop being so serious.”
He grabbed her arm as she passed. Despite her words, her heart immediately picked up speed, and her body came to attention. In spite of her words, she did want him again. And again. And again. She was just smart enough to admit it couldn’t happen. They’d had their fun, now it was time to move on. “So you’re going to be able to keep on going on as we have before, acting like I don’t remember what kind of moan you make when you come?”
“Sure. Why not?” Her cheeks heated. “Can you think of a reason we can’t do that?”
“One night.” He tightened his grip on her. “That’s what we agreed to.”
“I know. I was there.” She smiled, pulled free, and headed toward the bathroom again. “So stop looking at me like I’m going to break. You’re not that good, Steven.”
Oh…but he was. He really, really was.
The jerk.
“Is that a challenge?” He rubbed his jaw. “I can’t resist a challenge.”
She forced a laugh and grabbed her robe off the bathroom door. After shrugging it on and pulling it shut so he could no longer see her boobs, she felt a bit more in control of the conversation. “Call it what you want. I call it fact. We had sex, it was fun, but now we can pretend it never happened, and go back to our regularly scheduled lives as best friends.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked, right above where his fingers rested. “That easy?”
“That easy.” She added a shrug for good measure. “We’ve slept in a bed together before. Let’s treat it like that’s all that happened.”
His shrewd gaze was way too intent for her liking. And she was probably imagining it, but it was almost as if he was…pissed. When he caught her staring, he replaced the expression with a bland look and a smile. “All right,” he said, stepping back and dropping his hands to his sides and scanning the floor. Bending over, he picked up his boxers. “Consider it done.”
She swallowed hard as he stepped into his underwear, his muscles flexing and stretching and—oh my God, he caught her staring. Plastering a smile on, she nodded once. “Excellent. Glad it’s settled. Now if you’ll excuse me…?”
“Good night,” he called out.
“Night!” She slammed the door shut behind her.
Leaning against it, she breathed heavily. The only thing she could think about was all the magical things he’d done to her with his tongue, and his hands, and his big hard— “Stop it,” she whispered to herself.
Shaking her head, she washed up and walked back into her room, but tripped over her own feet. Her bed wasn’t empty. She stumbled forward, but caught herself before she hit the floor. “W-What are you doing?”
“Sleeping.” He yawned, covering his mouth. “What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Lying in my bed,” she pointed out, hugging herself.
“Like you said, we’ve slept together tons of times before, so if we want to go back to normal”—he shrugged and yawned again, but she didn’t miss the challenge he issued to her, it was written all over his expression—“I figured we might as well sleep together again tonight. Get the awkward part over with right away. If what we did meant nothing to us, we wouldn’t hesitate to sleep together, right? We wouldn’t think it was weird. We’d just go on and have a fun sleepover.”
Yeah. Fun. “Right. Of course. Good thinking.”
Without another word, she climbed into the bed, rolled away from him, and yanked the covers over herself. He lay directly beside her on his back, his body heat emanating toward her like a freaking beacon or something, and let out a soft moan. Her heart picked up speed at the sound. It was undeniably sexy.