By the time I sober up, my stomach hurts and my legs are cramping. I use the bed for leverage and manage to stand. Wyatt’s staring at me from his perch on top of the dresser—I can’t even fathom how he got up there without falling right back off—legs wide apart, with a peculiar expression on his face.
He realizes I’m staring back, and the embarrassment disappears, shut down and glossed over with perfect calm. Perfect calm seasoned with a dash of that same strange intensity.
“I always knew you had more than one Gift,” I say.
“What? To make an ass of myself?”
I blink. “Well, I was going to say a Magic Giggle-Inducing Burp, but okay.” So he has made a tiny bit of an ass of himself, but I do it on a regular basis. He’s due. And if he’s feeling it now, he’ll definitely be feeling it in the morning. That’s just what I need—us regressing to year one, when I couldn’t follow his orders for shit, and he threatened more than once to send me back to Boot Camp as a living example of what not to be. I finally found my footing with him, so what does he do? He crashes my place in the middle of the night, stone drunk, and then gets indignant about his own behavior.
“Look.” I cross the half-dozen paces to stand in front of him—and right between his parted legs. “Just go to bed, okay? Get pissy with me when we go back on rotation, but right now, I’m off the clock.”
Both eyebrows arch high. His lips part, and he moistens them with his tongue. Prepping an apology, perhaps? Or a simple agreement that, yes, it’s time for bed. I’m certainly ready to crash. Dealing with him lately has been exhausting. He keeps staring, not talking. I tilt my head and stick out my chin—something Ash calls my “Yeah? And?” face. Wyatt finally moves, and it’s to do something I don’t expect.
He kisses me full on the mouth. He has to lean out to reach me, which leaves him teetering on the edge of the dresser. There’s no insistence, no tongue, no touching anywhere except our mouths. A sweet press of his lips to mine, offering hints of whiskey and mustard. It’s nice. I haven’t had nice in … well, ever. Which is likely why I haven’t slapped him yet.
I don’t get nice. I don’t get sweet. I get fast and rough, in a storeroom with a stranger. It’s easier.
This is fucking complicated.
I pull away and take two steps back, his taste still lingering on my mouth. He blinks at me, owl-eyed, and I have nothing in my arsenal capable of comprehending the expression. So stupid me latches onto the first thing that presents itself—self-deprecating humor.
“I said go to bed, not join me in bed. What do you want sloppy seconds for anyway?”
A violent thundercloud darkens his expression. “You’re no one’s sloppy seconds.”
Danger alert. Kiss aside, this entire evening is teetering on the cusp of becoming a full-blown disaster. “I’m flattered,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “but you’ll still be my Handler in the morning—even if you can’t boss me around for two more days.”
He nods, blinking hard.
I lift one shoulder in a shrug, hopefully conveying more nonchalance than I feel. “Besides, we’re all someone’s sloppy seconds, Wyatt.” I’m done talking to him while he’s carrying around so much booze in his bloodstream. I jack my thumb at the bed. “Now, buster.”
Miraculously, he slides off the dresser and lands on his feet. I pull back the worn blanket and top sheet. He sits hard, and the mattress gives a few angry squeaks. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to unlace his own sneakers, I do it for him, aware of his eyes drilling metaphorical holes in my skull.
Task done, he draws up his legs and falls onto his back, the already-beaten pillow puffing air as it’s smashed even flatter. I toss the sheet and blanket across his chest—my version of tucking in.
Wyatt came here in some sort of pain, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask what’s got him so turned around. It was a mistake. The kiss was a mistake. It will be better for both of us if we wake up tomorrow and never mention tonight again.
At the door, I pause to hit the light. The door is nearly shut behind me when I hear him say, “I’m sorry.”
I don’t know if the apology is directed at me or his own disturbed memories, so I don’t reply.
Chapter Nineteen
Kismet said to help ourselves to food and clothing, and yet it felt strange to walk into someone else’s apartment. Without the boys—even I was starting to think of them that way, even though all three were anything but—the apartment felt empty. Missing the spark of life that made a place a home.
I wandered into the center of the living room, tense. Nervous, too, though I’d never say it out loud. The locks clicking into place did nothing to relax me. Wyatt lingered by the door. I didn’t turn around. I wasn’t ready to talk. Talking just complicated everything, and my life was complicated enough. My decision was made. Now I had to convince my heart to let go.
“Are you hungry?” Wyatt asked, the suddenness of his voice startling me.
A little. “No.”
A pregnant pause. “Thirsty?”
“I’m fine.” As if. “You know, Kismet was right about one thing.”
“Yeah?”
I one-eightied and smiled. “You do kind of smell.”
His face went perfectly still. Then a grin cracked through, and he chuckled. “Guess I should take advantage.” With a wicked glint in his eyes, he added, “Of the shower.”
“Have at it, Stinky. I’ll rummage for clean clothes.”
He strolled toward me, needing to pass in order to get to the bathroom, and my heart leapt. Then fell when he brushed right by. He whipped back a split second later, grabbed me around the waist hard enough to send heated flares up my healing back, and pulled. I tumbled into his chest, pulse racing, with a gasp he swallowed with a kiss. For its sudden buildup, the kiss was surprisingly gentle. His mouth moved softly over mine, tongue tracing gentle lines across my lips. Probing no deeper, even when I opened for him. Thumbs rose to caress the sensitive spots behind my ears. My scalp tingled. The abrasion of his beard scraped my cheeks. If a kiss could be both sensual and chaste, he’d mastered it.
I didn’t shake myself out of it until the bathroom door shut with a loud clack. A few more kisses like that and I’d never be able to leave him. Just thinking it made my heart hurt and my stomach ache. My cheeks still burned from the brush of his unshaven skin and a wicked plan formed in my mind.
I kicked off my shoes and socks and, ignoring my promise to find him clean clothes, darted barefoot around the apartment to the background music of running water, collecting a few things in the kitchen as I went. The two most important items, however, were behind the closed bathroom door. I briefly contemplated teleporting inside to get them. The quick shower shutoff decided for me. That had to be a record.
With one of the items in my hand, I staked out the bathroom door. Heard the clink of the shower curtain rings. Faint ruffling that could only be a towel over skin. The door pulled inward. Wyatt’s damp head poked out, searching. He caught me in his peripheral and jumped. Grinned. I smiled back. He glanced down at my hands.
“Am I supposed to wear that?” he asked.
“Yep,” I replied, twisting it around my fingers.
“Just that? I don’t really think it’s decent.”
“You got a towel on?”
He stepped out, presenting arms and legs and everything they were attached to, the best parts hidden behind a cinched bath towel. Water trickled from his hair, down his neck, making thin rivulets across his shoulders. Every muscle was perfectly toned, his abs well defined, though he seemed thinner without his clothes on. I guess I wasn’t the only one not eating much for the past week.
“I think the color clashes with my towel,” he said.
“I won’t mind and you won’t see it.”
His eyebrows arched dramatically. A playful grin quirked the corners of his mouth, showing me a side of him I rarely got to see. The man who knew how to tease and have fun when the world wasn’t crashing down around his ears.
