“No. That would be mean and I try not to be mean.”
“Except when you are pranking her?”
“Well, that is fun,” he argued back. His hands were now soaping her up, running all over her body into each and every curve and groove. She was getting turned on again.
“I don’t think she thought so,” she said, her breath catching as he spent more time between her legs than needed to clean her.
“Do you really want to talk about that, or focus on the fact we are both wet and slippery and turned on?”
“Did anyone tell you that you talk too much, Wyatt?”
He stopped talking and showed her instead.
* * *
An hour later he was standing on his balcony lighting the grill for the steaks. “I’m starving,” he said. “I’m putting two big fat steaks on the heat.”
“Good,” she said. “I could eat one myself.”
“I like a woman with a big appetite for all things in life.”
“Life is meant for living,” she said. “If you are going to just pick at things or deny yourself then you’ll find you’ll be miserable at the end of the day.”
He found that an odd statement. “Is that how you’ve felt since you’ve moved here? That you were denying yourself things?”
“I guess so. I’m not used to being alone and kind of self-imposed it to regroup. It’s boring, let me tell you.”
“I know,” he said. “Especially growing up in my family. I was always around people. I understand when others might want to get away. Jade wanted to get away a lot and be left alone, but not me. Bryce likes the peace and quiet too. Not the rest of us.”
He’d hated when Jade told him to get lost and then would try to go find his brothers who normally told him to scram too. Noah and Drake were the same age as Bryce and the three of them tended to hang out the most when they were younger or in their early teens. Sam was the oldest and hung out with the three of them over Wyatt when he had to. Otherwise he was with his own friends.
Ryder was the baby and the most annoying half the time. Wyatt didn’t mind hanging with Ryder when they were growing up, but he’d rather be with his older brothers.
He supposed he understood why they didn’t want to be with him though since he’d felt that way about Ryder. Being with the older kids was much more fun than the younger ones.
It was the best when they were with the Five. Brody, Aiden, Mason, Cade, and Ella were just a few months younger than he and Ella. They all graduated the same time even though they went to different schools. Well, not different colleges, as he went with Bryce, Noah, Drake, Cade, and Ella to Duke.
But most times now he found he was on his own and hated it. Being an only child would have sucked the big one and as much as family could get on his nerves, he’d gladly take it over the silence.
“I didn’t mind not having siblings, but I had a lot of friends. There were a ton of kids in my neighborhood growing up too. I was always around someone and if no one was around, then I was outside shooting hoops or kicking a ball in the yard.”
“Let me guess, you played more than basketball and soccer?”
“I did,” she said. “Not in college though. Even playing basketball, it’s not like I started. I wasn’t tall enough, but I was fast and that helped.”
“You don’t do anything half assed, do you?”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think you do either. Not with your career. Not with family. Maybe just with women though.”
Back to people thinking he didn’t take things seriously. “The truth is I put so much into my career, and my family means the world to me. I guess it comes back to denying myself. I needed that release after school and work and my family was the one I took it out on. They understood me.”
“But women don’t?” she asked.
“Why all the questions?” he asked her, not sure where this was going.
“Just trying to figure you out,” she said.
“I’m not that hard to read. At least that is what everyone tells me.” He hated that, but he was pretty much an open book. Probably came from talking so much.
“It seems you are easy to read.”
“And you aren’t sure you like it?” he asked. “It didn’t seem that way earlier.” He put the steaks on the grill.
She stood next to him. “I like it. I’m just trying to figure things out. Or figure you out. You’re different than most I’ve dated before. Sort of,” she said.
“Meaning?”
“Just that I normally went for guys that were into sports but I took a backseat then. I dated men that weren’t and I was bored with them.”
“I’m not focused on sports enough that it overtakes my life. I don’t have the time for it. It’s for entertainment. That’s it.” His hands reached for hers and pulled her close. “And I highly doubt you are going to get bored with me.”
“Probably not. But this brings up something else.”
“Oh, you’re bringing something else up,” he said his hips pressing into hers.
“I don’t want anyone at work to know about us,” she said almost killing the rise he had going.
He stepped back. “Why?”
“I don’t want to be judged. I don’t want to be looked at like someone else you are just killing the time with.”
“But that isn’t what we’ve got,” he argued.
“We don’t know what we’ve got after a few weeks. There is no way to know that.”
He knew what it was but could see she was going to be stubborn and wasn’t in the mood to argue. “So what? We act like strangers at work? Ignore each other?
