“Fine.” He turned away and began lugging the guitar, his jacket, and his sorry ass toward the front door. “I’ll wait for you downstairs,” he added, which made it sound like he had free access to her apartment even though he didn’t, but he refused to walk away and leave Cooper an open field.
Walk away? Hell, man, you were dismissed. Moved along so she can set up her ice cream social with Cooper.
Who went out for “ice cream” anyway? Was that firefighter code for sex? Like, “Wanna slide down my pole?” Firefighters were dawgs. Notoriously. At least they had been in the NYFD. Why would Bluelick be any different? Just ‘cause Josh had fallen helmet over boots for Melody and promptly gotten her in the family way didn’t mean the rest of the crew was ready to settle down.
He kicked the door shut behind him and then carried the guitar through the house, down the stairs, and into the dark, shared laundry room. Did Roxy know an ice cream date with Cooper was ultimately a euphemism for—
The door opened from Roxy’s side, spilling light from her apartment into the small space. She came through with her pretty eyes shooting fire, her cheeks whipped pink by temper, and her mouth un-kissed as far as he could tell. “You were rude.”
“Me? Hey, I didn’t throw up in the man’s car. Tonight, that counts as pretty fucking polite. Did you and Cooper pin down a time for your epic ice cream social?”
She sank her fingers into her hair and dragged it away from her face, bunching the curls into opulent piles. “That’s none of your business.”
“By ice cream, he means sex. You’re clear on that, right? The kind of cheap, meaningless sex you get from a twenty-three-year-old guy who finally moved out of his mother’s place and has a little freedom for the first time in his whole small-town life.”
“Oh, and I should avoid that? Why, West? Are you offering me cheap, meaningless sex of a better sort?”
And just like that the air in the little room turned electromagnetic. Hell, he didn’t know what he was offering. He was fucked up beyond all reason, in a permanent and highly aggravated state of lust for this woman, clinging to sanity by his fingernails. His body screamed for him to say, “Yes,” and beg her to put him out of his misery. Instead, he breathed deeply and endured the unappealing combination of bleach and dryer sheets mixing with the residual taste of bourbon in the back of his throat.
“Uh-uh. No.” She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a cigarette. “You don’t get to do this.” Defiant eyes met his as she placed it between her lips then darted away as she dug out a lighter.
“Do what?”
Her hand shook as she held the flame to the tip of the Camel Unfiltered that Ed and his cronies favored. He watched, impaired and helplessly mesmerized, as she inhaled hard enough to turn the end of the cigarette to a red-hot eye.
“You don’t have to want me. I’m a big girl. I can handle rejection. But you can’t go around deliberately blocking me from a nice guy who does.”
Somebody had to, because the idea of her having “ice cream” with Cooper or anybody else sent jealousy ripping through him with the ferocity of a fifty thousand–volt taser hit. He couldn’t stop himself from going to her any more than he could stop himself from breathing. She retreated until her backside hit the washing machine and her purse hit the floor, but he just kept coming. “I never said I didn’t want you, Roxy.” He ground their lower bodies together, saw her eyes go wide behind a screen of smoke. “Does this feel like I don’t want you?”
Her free hand found his shirtfront and pulled him so close he could count her eyelashes. Her fist nested over his heart like a restless bird. “Then take me, West. I want you, too.”
It sounded so simple and logical, in this moment. But it wasn’t. Roxy wasn’t a logic-based life form. Impulse and chance? Yes. Logic? No. He lowered his chin to her ear. Breathed in skin-warmed honeysuckle along with a waft of smoke. “I’m not in the habit of giving in to things just because I want them.” Then, to completely undermine his words, he dipped his knees and rubbed their bodies together, fitting his cock into the notch between her thighs for one breath-stealing moment.
Her forehead landed in the center of his chest. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the feel of her, and the room took a spin. A bad one. Bad enough he might have weaved on his feet, but he opened his eyes at the same time she looped her arm around his waist. That negligible weight and a stationary focal point on the wall helped anchor him.
She turned her head, so her cheek snuggled his pec. “Nobody has to know.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but somehow strong enough to shatter his heart. “It doesn’t have to mean anything except two people taking the edge off a little attraction.” She laughed, and the hollow sound reverberated through his chest. “The powers that be aren’t going to come down on you because you set aside your high morals for a minute and enjoyed a drunk fuck in the laundry room with your disreputable neighbor. It won’t leave a mark on anyone’s permanent record. I promise.”
That sounded logical, too. There was something fundamentally wrong with it, but just now his marinated brain cells had a hard time separating wrongs and rights. The lazy curls of smoke rising from her cigarette made his eyes burn. The dry smell of tobacco layered unpleasantly with detergent, honeysuckle, and boozy sweat. His sweat. He took a desperate inhale, but it did no good. Why was it suddenly so goddamn hot in here? If he didn’t get cool air quick, he was going to lose it.
“Roxy…”
In
