Shacking Up(81)

By noon I still haven't heard from Ruby. I either need a drink or to punch someone out. Or to talk to Ruby. The latter would be my preference.

I have a decent reason to contact her that will inevitably get a response: Francesca's feeding schedule.

Now that I'm home we need to communicate about that kind of thing so we don't overfeed her. I had a routine, but I'm guessing with Ruby's odd hours it's changed significantly over the past month.

I make sure the first message I send is convoluted enough that she would require an explanation to understand exactly what I was taking about.

It works. Her response comes a few minutes later in the form of several question marks.

I close my office door, turn the lock, and hit the video call button. Ruby answers on the third ring.

"Hey." Her voice is gravelly and low.

I'm not looking at her, though, I'm looking at the ceiling of her bedroom. "Did I wake you?"

"Yeah, but I needed to get up. What's up? That text was worse than your handwriting. It made no sense."

"Sorry about that. I realized with me being back Francesca's feeding schedule might be a little out of whack. I thought it would be easier to talk about it."

I hear a drawer open. It's a little squeaky. "I never thought of that. I've just been feeding her like usual. Should I not? Do you want to be the one to do it?"

"Why don't we keep it the way it is until we have a chance to sit down together?"

"Okay. I can do that."

I'm still looking at the ceiling and I can hear the patter of feet and a rustle. "What're you doing?"

"Getting dressed."

"Did you answer the phone naked?"

There's motion and suddenly I'm looking at Ruby's arched brow. "You're really asking me that?"

I fight the grin that's trying to spread across my face. "It's a legitimate question."

She's propped the phone up on the dresser, based on my view of the room. "You know, you can just call me without the video component now, like normal people do."

"It's a habit. I like seeing you." And feeling you, like I did in my bed the other night, but I'm getting to that.

"I'm so attractive when I'm half asleep."

And she's given me the perfect segue. "Speaking of being half-asleep, do you want to talk about what happened the other night?"

Her gaze shifts away and she busies herself with something outside of my line of view, so I'm only looking at her chin. "I'm sorry, the other night?" Her voice is surprisingly even.

"Are we pretending it didn't happen?"

"Pretending what didn't happen?" She's still not making eye contact.

"You. In my bed."

Her brow furrows. "You mean while you were away? I told you I fell asleep in there a couple of times. I changed the sheets before you came home. If it was a big deal you should've said something."

"I'm talking about you in my bed with me in it."

She blinks a couple of times. She's giving away nothing. A sly smile spreads across her face and her voice drops to a sultry whisper. She drags a finger down the side of her neck. I follow the movement, hoping she'll go lower, to the breast I cupped not that long ago. "Have you been dreaming about me, Bane?



       
         
       
        

My eyes snap back up to her face. The answer to that question is yes. For the past several weeks I've been dreaming about her nonstop. "You were in my bed the other night."

She laughs. "Was I now?"

Now it's my turn to frown. There's no way I dreamed that. It was far too visceral. A knock at my office door prevents me from asking more questions and verifying that I'm not losing my mind over this woman. Griffin taps his watch through the glass pane. I check the time. Shit. I have a meeting in five minutes. "I have to go."

"Do I need to feed Francesca?"

"I did it this morning. She just needs playtime."

"I love playtime." Her grin is pure sexual evil right before the screen goes blank.

It looks like the video flirting is still on. I have to do some creative rearranging in my pants before I get out of my chair.

I grab my laptop, notepad, and file folder keeping them at waist level. It's been a long time since I've had to shield an issue in my pants.

* * *

I go into the office on Saturday and work from home on Sunday. I get up early, because I'm incapable of sleeping in, and go for a run on the treadmill. By nine I'm showered and there's still no sign of life from Ruby's room. The only way I know she's home is because her shoes are by the door.

I settle in at my computer with a coffee and pull up my research files. The past weeks have been exhausting mentally. I'm beginning to grow accustomed to using my brain for this type of analytic purpose, but it's been an adjustment. I'm surrounded by pie charts and graphs. Comparative data analysis was never my favorite part of marketing, but I learned how to be good at it.