Out of the corner of my eye, my phone dimmed, silent, but I clearly knew who it’d been. I also knew I was still technically December’s man of honor and she obviously needed me for something.
“Mmm. Breakfast now?” Bri asked, knotting her arms around my waist. “Or are you still hungry?”
I definitely was, but when the phone buzzed once more, I realized I had to handle some business first.
My knuckles grazed Bri’s cheek. The phone fell into silence for the third or fourth time, who knew, and when she hadn’t noticed, I felt like an ass. She was completely in this moment where I’d allowed my thoughts to run off. But the sooner I handled whatever this call was, I could come right back to her. I could be here with her completely.
I kissed her knuckles. “Mind if I, uh, head to the bathroom first?” I smiled. “That is, if you have one of those.”
I was joking because of the lack of furniture she had in her living room, and she obviously had a bathroom, so what I said didn’t make any sense at all. But I liked that she played along when she shoved me. I liked her playful side completely.
“You really are naughty.” Her head shook, and all those delicious waves of jet black cut across her clean face. Before she left, she captured a hand behind my ass. She was an ass woman, noted. A gentle squeeze before she slapped it. “It’s down the hall. Kitchen the same. Follow the sounds.”
Before I let her leave, I got her mouth, planning to make quick work of whatever this was with Prinze and December so I could get back to her.
Back to this.
Bri
Ramses took a long time. In fact, so long I went down the hall just to check on him. He was obviously fine, but typically men didn’t take as long as women when it came to getting themselves together in the morning. I heard the shower running when I arrived at the door and almost knocked to ask if he needed anything. I’d actually left towels in there for him. Being proactive and all that. I assumed he might want a shower later, and I guess I was being a little bit anal retentive.
I stopped at the sound of voices.
Just his, but he was talking to someone. I heard one name, December, but it’d been enough for me to step back since I recognized it. I read it on menus when I arrived at the reception last night.
His friend.
His friend who’d just gotten married. His friend who he’d admitted being in love with back in high school. His friend who (again, just got married) he secretly spoke to behind my bathroom walls…
With shower on.
All right then.
I didn’t consider myself one of those women who jumped to conclusions. I was reasonable, but that most certainly didn’t make me blind. Especially when it came to some of the conversations we’d had last night. The reason we came together in the first place and fucked basically like animals last night. I’d been hurting, yes.
But he had been too.
He said he was less happy than something else, i.e. hurting.
Gliding away from the door, I left Ramses to it, that conversation and whatever that was not my business. That was his friend, not mine, and I didn’t know the dynamics of their relationship. Him talking to her the day after her wedding might have been perfectly okay. And possibly was on her end.
She wasn’t in love with him.
He said he had loved her. Had.
Easing a breath, I tabled all unreasonable thoughts and returned to the gravy. I had it set to slow burn, the biscuits I’d made to go with it off to the side. I’d had to make do with what I had in the condo today. I didn’t go to the store a lot, usually had someone deliver.
I turned the burner off in thought, then placed my hands on granite counters tops, trying really freaking hard to convince myself the guy who’d gone down on
me just this morning (and hell, had he been good at that) wasn’t still in love with his high school crush—a married woman.
Ramses…
Like a summon through the air, extended limbs hung heavily around my waist, hitching me back toward a solid chest. My feet actually escaped the floor a little.
“I could get used to you standing around in an empty kitchen saying my name.” His teeth pinched my earlobe into his mouth, his body moist and thick with heat. He didn’t have a shirt on.
Christ in heaven.