The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

He focused on the top of her head or her hands when they were together and he was excessively cheerful. A distraction technique. It was such a wrong note from him. He wasn’t cheerful. He was pissed off his big meeting kept getting canceled.

She offered to check his injuries and he brushed her off. He was fine. Didn’t want to bother her. She left her satchel on the counter and a jacket over a stool and he didn’t comment. If she wanted a reaction she’d have to push him harder.

And she wanted the reaction.

She wanted Tom. She couldn’t look at him now without imagining him naked, that strength and hardness he downplayed. The gentleness he thought was the only thing he was allowed to give. Her vibrator got a workout and she hoped he heard it buzzing on the rock-my-world setting at night.

On Wednesday, he announced he was going to Des Moines Friday for a conference.

“Go wild,” he’d said. “The place is yours for the weekend.” He’d looked relieved and it was bogus. Pre-rocks-off Tom would’ve been unable to stand the idea of Flick alone in his apartment for days and what it might do to the décor.

Which meant the plan changed. Thursday night she made sure to be out of the Cassidy Strauss office in good time. She went to the gym, did a light workout, enough to build up a glow, came home and left her shoes by the door and draped a clean, dry towel—but he didn’t know that—over the sectional. Her gym bag in the hallway, right where someone might trip over it.

His big meeting had been rescheduled for today but he’d gotten a cancellation email at breakfast and hadn’t been happy. He could well be in a bad headspace. She heard him come in. He didn’t trip but he did stop in the hall. She came out of her bedroom, wearing her damp gym gear, tight-fitted, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, and caught him before he could rearrange his features into regretfully cheerful.

“What?”

He frowned and pointed to her bag. “Does this have to be here? I nearly fell over it.”

“You should watch where you’re going.”

He blinked hard at that, his dark brows angling down.

“That towel out there.” He pointed back to the living room. “Did you leave a wet towel on the sectional?”

“Maybe.”

“Seriously, Flick.” He looked away and back. “I don’t have time for this.”

She peeled her tank off and dropped it on the floor.

“What are you doing?” He put his laptop bag on the hall table with a thud.

“What does it look like?”

He closed his eyes and sighed. “I’m hardly in the mood for a striptease.”

His headspace was decidedly not let’s-have-fun. It was I’d-like-to-rip-something-in-half.

“I can see that.” She dropped her shorts, made a show of kicking them toward him.

“Brat. You’re trying to rile me up.” He took his tie off. “It’s not going to work.”

He doth protest too vigorously. “You’re trying to shut me out.”

“I’m busy. We had sex. Hooked up. Homegrown Tinder. It was great. You’re the one who said it wasn’t a proposal. We’re roommates. It’s short-term. That’s it.”

Vicious, except for the way he looked at her and that his tie had made it all the way to the carpet. He took his jacket off, tossed it toward the hall table where it caught and slid off. He didn’t glance at it and he wasn’t worried about a wet towel on his precious sectional. He was steamed up. She put her hand behind her back to undo her bra.

“Don’t.”

He could blow past her, leave her standing there in her underwear and a good idea gone bad, having damaged their fledgling friendship. But he was fixed on her as the source of his troubles and she was too far into this to abort.

“What are you going to do to stop me?” Apart from eat her up with his eyes.

“We’re not doing this.”

“It’s simple. I want you. I want to feel you. I want you to feel me.”