The Love Coupon (Stubborn Hearts 2)

“Sorry. If you didn’t already get it, I’m addicted to your body, to having sex with you. That was the sex we’re not currently having talking.”

“He gets up early.”

Throwing herself at Tom wasn’t high on her to-do list. “I’m going.”

She was almost to the hall when he said, “Flick, I might be addicted to your body, to having sex with you, but I don’t know that it helps either of us out here. You’re leaving and I need to focus on what comes next for me.”

It wasn’t race-you-to-the-bed, first-one-there-be-naked, but she could work with it.

Chapter Fifteen

The evening Tom got back from dropping Dad off at the airport, Flick was out, but there was ample evidence she’d been in.

There was a gym bag outside her bedroom door and an umbrella drying on the balcony, a long string of knobbly blue-gray pearls on a silver chain was on the coffee table and there was a pair of black shoes with weapon-like heels under a stool.

Added to that were shiny blue specks in the sink and on cupboard handles. There were tiny silvery stars on the countertop and little pieces of colored curled ribbon on the floor with confetti holes from a puncher.

He half expected to find party food leftovers in the refrigerator.

The specks didn’t want to wash away. He spent a few minutes licking his index finger and trying to pick up the stars before he gave up and went to the gym for a run.

Flick was home when he got back. There was more of her scattered around the place, as if her Dad-enforced confinement conclusion had to be celebrated by spilling her stuff everywhere.

The woman herself was wearing her “I’m at home and comfortable” yoga pants and a tent-like T-shirt, and sat on a kitchen stool swinging her bare feet.

She threw her arms open when he came in. “Alone at last.”

It was a close thing. He very nearly went to her and dragged her into his arms and didn’t waste words on pleasantries.

There was nothing stopping him from moving to Washington. It was a blinding flash of realization. But really, what were the two of them if you took the sex out of the equation?

The sex was the whole equation. They were otherwise opposites and too different to sustain anything real. So what to do about that? Have all the sex while it was on offer was the smart answer. Because the sex, oh man, he really liked the sex. Didn’t matter whether Flick was tempting him by dancing or making him ache to comfort her by crying. It ended up in the same place—extreme pleasure and a raging appetite for more.

Flick’s arms slapped down by her sides. “What’s wrong?”

She winced. “I’ll clean up. And I’ve eaten so you don’t need to worry about me.”

Oh hell. All the sex would probably wreck him. He wasn’t made for affairs that went deeper than one night in a hotel room and he’d already gone deeper with Flick than with anyone he’d had sex with in a long time. Right now they were roommates, friends. The smart idea was leaving it at that.

“You’re looking at me like I’m a leftover splinter,” she said.

He shook his head. It wasn’t an inaccurate definition; she was under his skin. “I need a shower.”

She laughed. “I think you look cute.”

That was confusing. He was a disgusting, scowling sweat ball. He didn’t get it till he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Blue specks in his hair, all over his neck and two silver stars on his cheek. Christ. He’d been at the gym with other people looking like he was the clown at a kid’s party.

Flick was outside the bathroom door. “It’ll wash off eventually.”

He picked the stars off his cheek and one of them fell to his chest and stuck there. He opened the door to glare at her. “Why am I covered in shiny stuff?”

She was leaning against the doorjamb and looked up at him with a sideshow-alley grin. “Have your shower and I’ll tell you.”

Under the grin, she looked tired, and under the tired she looked strong. She would take her grief and use it for fuel to take Washington. Under the glitter, he was still as confused as fuck about what to do with her. He shut the door in her face and ran the water hotter than was sensible, trying to scald the indecision out. It didn’t get all the glitter.

Flick had used the time to clean up after herself. She had music playing when he got back to the living room. At least it was someone he recognized, Chris Martin, fronting Coldplay, some song about superheroes and risk and fairy-tale bliss. About wanting something just like this.

She’d lured him with glitter and now she’d ambushed him with a song.