by Zoe York
“The mouse! It’s back!”
He grabbed the door handle, then paused. “Do you want me to come in?”
“Adam!”
He took that as a yes. Throwing the door open, he tried desperately not to look at Isla, curled up at one end of the tub, her breasts barely covered by one arm and her knees pulled up to her chest.
Her hair was piled on her head, wet tendrils sliding down her neck.
And he would have popped a hard-on right there if she didn’t have a look of panic on her face. No, not panic, exactly. Something else. Wild exasperation.
“I’m fucking naked,” she exclaimed.
He was very aware. “Yep.”
She threw her non-breast-protecting arm in the direction of the toilet. “Get it! I’m not chasing a mouse naked!”
He grabbed a towel and lunged for the little rodent, but it was faster than his arousal-dulled reflexes. Each toss of the towel fell short, and then the mouse was gone, a flash of brown zooming under the tub.
He dropped to his knees in a desperate attempt to follow it, but there was no point.
“What is wrong with you?” She laughed. “You suddenly have two left-feet and are all thumbs.”
He reared up, desperate to get out of the bathroom suddenly, but all he could see was her flushed face and her swollen breasts pressed against her arm. “What’s wrong with me? You’re not wearing anything. All I can think about is following those drops of water as they slide over your skin, chasing them with my fingertips and my, my…” He trailed off, realizing what he’d just said.
What he had just admitted to.
Her eyes went wide.
The tap dripped, and suddenly there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room.
She called his name as he spun out of the room, as he stomped down the hall and slammed his bedroom door.
Then he threw his back against it with a heavy thud and sank to the floor.
Isla couldn’t breathe.
She needed to follow him.
She needed to get out of the tub, go downstairs, get dressed, and then they could talk.
Or not get dressed. Just go down the hall and let him chase water droplets all over her skin. That option made her pulse sizzle dangerously.
But she couldn’t do that, because she couldn’t handle what would come next. The fallout, the mess. The inevitable dissolution of her second marriage because she wouldn’t be enough.
Adam wanted her? What had happened to their agreement that their relationship was platonic?
She pulled the plug to drain the tub and climbed out, her legs shaking. She grabbed the towel without really seeing it, dried off as much as she could, then wrapped it tightly around her torso.
In hindsight, she should have brought her clothes up here to change.
She shouldn’t have screamed when she saw the mouse, and she should not have called for Adam.
That was mortifying on so many levels.
When she opened the bathroom door, the hallway was dark. So was Adam’s bedroom. No light appeared under his door. She hadn’t heard him go downstairs, but he could have crept out. He had skills.
Her heart sank and she quickly padded downstairs, dashing to the safety of her own room. No more baths. Only showers for her.
She pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, and then for good measure layered a long-sleeved tee on top of that and pulled on a hoodie. Layers were good. Layers were protection. Then she put on her face cream, combed her damp hair, and gave herself a stern look in the mirror.
Go and find him.
She peeked out the front window. His truck was still in the driveway, so chances are he was upstairs in his bedroom with the lights out, hoping the dark would erase what had just happened.
Heart pounding, she climbed the stairs again and knocked on his door.
He didn’t answer.
“Adam,” she said softly. “Can I come in?”
“Nope,” he growled. It sounded like he was right there.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m sitting against the door and I’m not moving.”
“Okay.” She sat down, too. “Can we talk like this?”
“I don’t know if we should.”
“Because you’d rather keep things from me?” She winced as soon as she said it. She didn’t want him to think she felt antagonistic about this situation. They were in this together—or so she hoped. “I want to talk. About anything.”
And everything.
She hated the idea that Adam was keeping things from her, but not for the same reason she hated secrets in her first marriage. She knew deep down, with intense clarity, that if he was hiding attraction to her, it was for her own good.
Because she’d told him they could only be friends.
He had selflessly given her everything she wanted at every turn.
A long, terrifying silence stretched on the other side of the door, then she heard him move. The door swung open, and a trapdoor in her belly dropped away, too.
Adam loomed over her, his expression unreadable. She scrambled to her feet. “Hi.”
“Come here,” he said gruffly, and she threw her arms around his torso.
Both of them exhaled at the same time.
“Do we have anything to drink?” Isla asked. Neither of them had bought wine or beer since they’d moved in together. The last time she’d had anything to drink had been the night they’d slept together, in fact, and that felt far too long ago right now.
Adam chuckled, a low rumble against her body. “As a matter of fact, I bought a bottle of something for Christmas. Let’s go downstairs.”
She hadn’t noticed the bottle of Marsala in the kitchen cupboard. And if she had seen it, she’d have thought it was cooking wine, an assumption Adam clearly expected.
“It’s a long story,” he said as he grabbed two mismatched juice glasses.
They didn’t even have the right glassware for emotional drinking. Or maybe what they had was exactly right. She gratefully took the tawny liquid and breathed in the sweet scent. “I love long stories.”
“My dad used to drink this every Christmas. I thought we could get a tree, maybe throw a party or something…” He shifted nervously, his glass still in his hand. “But today is as good as any to share the tradition with you.”
“It’s nice,” she said. A weak response. “Tell me more. Do you drink it every year?”
He shook his head. “Something about being back home, in my own house…it sparked a memory. My parents would have a party every year, and it would basically be adults on the ground floor, drinking and eating, and kids of all ages would crowd upstairs. Our house was huge, with a full attic—that was Will and Owen’s space, no little brothers allowed. When they moved out, I had big plans to claim it over Josh, who was already car obsessed.”
His face tightened, a slash of pain reminding her he wouldn’t get that chance.
She took another big slug of wine. It was very drinkable, which was good and bad, but she was focusing on the good right now. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.
He tapped the edge of his glass against hers. “Thanks for sharing this with me. Hey, guess who introduced my father to Marsala? Mr. Minelli.”
“Anne’s husband?”
“Yep. Our families used to hang out all the time. After Mom died, there was talk of Josh and I maybe going and living with them, but Owen shut that down.”
“Oh.” Isla pressed her hand to her chest. And she took another slug of wine. “Wow.”
“How about you? Any holiday traditions? Or emotional sob stories?”
“All of my emotional trauma is more recent,” she muttered. “I wish I had something specific like this as a memory from childhood. We did all the usual things around the holidays, I guess, but nothing stands out. I wasn’t raised to make a big deal about anything. It was a bone of contention with…”
Adam grabbed the bottle. “Let’s take this to the couch.”
She followed. “I didn
’t mean to make it all about me.”
“Hey, if I haven’t been crystal clear about this—I’m very into you. Make it all about you, that’s just fine by me.”
I’m very into you. The elephant in the room. She sank onto the couch. “We talked about how we both have bruises. I’m still learning how to separate sex from love, because my marriage—my first marriage—was pretty toxic. I guess my parents were pretty uptight, although I didn’t think of it like that. I didn’t have a lot of experience before I joined the army, so that was a bit of a shock.” She laughed nervously.
“Did you date a lot of army guys before you got married?”
“Almost exclusively. Nobody else understood the schedule. It was just easier. But present company excluded, I didn’t really find any good ones. At least not in hindsight. I thought my dating life was okay?” She shrugged. “I had to try pretty hard to not be one of the guys, though. And most of the time, I actually preferred being invisible like that.”
He poured himself another glass, and took a big swallow as he raked his eyes over her.
His expression was too hard to read, so she didn’t even try. She held out her glass and he topped her up.
Then he leaned back, his gaze still inscrutable. “You’re not invisible to me.”
The only response she had to that was to take a big slug of wine.
One of his eyebrows arched. “Too much information?”
She laughed weakly. “Aren’t we way past that point today?” She shook her head. Nothing in her life had felt as hollow as standing on the wrong side of a closed door, knowing he was torturing himself on the other side. “I wanted to talk. That’s talking. Thank you.”
She might not have wanted to have this conversation before, but even worse than having it would be to not have it. Or something like that. Drink.
Adam licked a drop of wine off his lip, then leaned further into the couch cushions. “You’re beautiful. That’s an objective statement. I see people falling all over themselves for you, way more than you notice.”
“No.” She frowned and shook her head.
He shrugged. “It’s true.”
“When?”
“Bouncer at the club I took you dancing at. My fucking classmates, even though you walked in on my arm. Sure, we were just friends, but they didn’t know that.” He laughed under his breath. “Jerks.”
“I was dressed up that night.” And she still didn’t remember it the way he was describing, but she wasn’t going to argue with him. She cleaned up all right, she wasn’t in denial about that. But it wasn’t enough to be a—
“Nah, you’re irresistible all the time. Every inch of you. I thought that in the summer, and I still think so now. More now, even, with the way you look in sweatpants?” He paused, like he was thinking if he should say more.
Say more. Did she really want that? Yes. And yet she wasn’t ready when he gave her more.
“You’re fucking hot, Isla.”
“But—” She cut herself off.
“But what?” He suddenly glowered. “Would it be better if I banged you even though I thought you were only okay?”
Her head was spinning, but no, that wouldn’t be better. “That was…different.”
“Not for me.”
“We agreed it was a onetime only thing.”
“Yep.”
“Did you want it to be more than that?”
“I—” His frown tightened. Another pause. So many of his thoughts about her required filtering, apparently.
“Just tell me,” she whispered.
“At the time, I thought I didn’t. I swear to you, I accepted that it wasn’t going to happen again. But I thought about how good a repeat would be. And then I stuffed those desires away, because they didn’t matter.” He made a strangled sound. “And no, I haven’t been frustrated since the summer. Something has changed recently. I like the way you look asleep on the couch. I like the way you look in a t-shirt. And I really like the way you look in absolutely nothing at all, which until tonight had been relegated strictly to my non-waking hours.”
Wait, what? “You’ve been dreaming about…”
“Don’t finish that question. I can’t be held responsible for where my dreams go.”
She drained her glass and shoved it at him. “Top me up.”
One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Is this a good idea?”
“It’s not a bad idea,” she muttered.
He did as she asked, then set the bottle down. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“Why can’t we see where a physical relationship would go?”
Hot tears pricked at the back of her eyelids. Hands shaking, she set down her glass. How did she begin to explain the layers of complication in her answer? Answers, because there wasn’t just one thing. Except none of it came out when she opened her mouth. Was it Brett? Sure. The thought of losing herself again? Absolutely. But there was something else, something she didn’t want to look at or think about, and definitely didn’t want to get into with Adam.
She winced and simplified it to three words that felt true, three words she could actually voice out loud. “Because I’m scared.”
“Well, that’s a pretty good reason.” He put his glass down as well, then held out his arm, and she folded in against his chest. She felt his lips brush the top of her hair, just for a second, and it broke something loose inside her. Something big and sad and rough, and it pushed her feelings all the way to the surface. Frustrated tears slid down her face for the first time in far too long.
She tried to hide her face in his shirt, but that was getting wet, and this wasn’t fair. She couldn’t sob on his body right after refusing it any kind of shared pleasure. But when she tried to twist away, he stopped her.
Gently, carefully, he squeezed her tight. “Hey, it’s okay.”
“It’s not. It’s ridiculous.” But she still burrowed herself deeper into his body, stealing his touch, his embrace. She was selfish on a bone-deep level, and she hated herself for it.
With a growl, she twisted away from him, her limbs aching at the loss of his hug. “I’m sorry.”
When he had proposed, she hadn’t been ready for any kind of intimacy with him. But even worse than that was that she still wasn’t, not really, even as she wanted him—one of those complicated layers she could feel unfurling inside her, showing itself even when she didn’t want to look at it.
“I know.” He just sat there behind her, not moving. She could feel his presence, solid and far too understanding.
And he waited.
Tension warred inside her. Part of her wanted to flee, to hide, to ignore everything he had shared today and try to force their relationship back into the neat box it had been in just hours earlier.
But what had really changed?
He’d confessed a desire she had already seen.
He’d shown her, repeatedly, that it didn’t matter if she had sex with him or not, he was still her guy. Her friend, her partner.
Her husband. He had firmly and completely disassociated the sex part from a marriage, but not because he didn’t want it.
Because she didn’t.
Hadn’t.
Did she?
When he proposed, she’d tested the chemistry between them, wanting to find—and finding—a lack of a spark. Adam’s kisses had always been nice. Warm, lovely, kind. He was a good kisser, to be more than fair.
But she hadn’t wanted more. Hadn’t let herself want more, and now, in hindsight, she was questioning everything. Had she managed to lie to herself about that chemistry? Because the other day…
So she should test it again now. It would be the transparent thing to do. Turn around, brush her mouth against his, and prove to them both that any desire he might be experiencing was one-sided and temporary.
What if she felt something more?
She was horrified to realize there wasn’t much of a what if to the question. She knew even without kissing Adam
that she would want more. There had been enough kisses already, enough glancing touches and subconscious watching of him—of his body, the shape of him moving through her life, the size of him next to her in everything they did—to know something had shifted deep inside her.
She felt so much for him already.
She wasn’t ready to let that dam burst wide open. Not yet. But could she test it. A controlled experiment.
Maybe she just needed another drink first. She glanced at her glass, but it was empty. Then she twisted around and looked at Adam.
He gave her a funny look as she swayed closer. “What are you doing?”
She smiled, and it felt all warm and thick, like a stream of honey or molasses, heated up. “I’m going to kiss you.”
He groaned. “No.”
“What?” She leaned in closer. Clearly he’d misheard her, because he wanted her kisses. He’d told her as much. He wanted more than kisses. He wanted to lick water droplets off her naked body. “I said, I’m going to kiss you.”
He skated his hands up her arms, his touch featherlight until he reached her shoulders. Then he tightened his grip just enough to ease her back.
Away from him.
And he shook his head, his face tight with tension. “Not tonight.”
Her pulse pounded in her ears as she scrambled back. Embarrassment coursed over her in hot waves.
He followed, his gaze intent and locked on her face. “Don’t run away from me. I’m not rejecting you. I want you so much it hurts. But if you’re going to kiss me, especially after telling me that you aren’t sure…I need us both to be sober.”
“I’m—” She cut herself off. Her head spun. No, she wasn’t sober anymore. She cut her attention sideways, trying to focus on the bottle of wine. “How much of that did we drink?”
He grabbed it and wiggled it in the air, showing her it was empty. “Far too much.”
“Oh.” She pressed her eyes shut.
He was right.
“If you still want to kiss me in the morning,” he whispered, close enough she could feel his warm, wine-sweetened breath against her face. “I’ll be waiting. And right now, I think we should go to bed.”
She wanted to protest, but she could feel the wine in her veins, and knew he was right. She pushed herself up, and the room spun wildly in one direction. “Whoa,” she whispered as she reached for the nearest thing to hold on to—which was Adam.