He put the noodles down and collected the clothing bag while she continued to eat and watch him.
“Here.” He tossed the bag on the seat next to her, hoping it would distract her from her current line of questioning.
She put down her beef and he went back to eating his noodles and standing around like a lame-ass.
As soon as she pulled out the first dress, he knew he was forgiven for being late back home. And that she’d forgotten to grill him about his blatant dislike of all things blue-blood.
“Oh, Peirce,” she whispered, running a hand over the simple fabric. He’d worried that all the clothes would be too plain for her taste, but the moisture rising in her eyes said otherwise. “This is why you were late? You did this for me?”
“I didn’t want you going out on your own.” His embarrassment was a surprise.
“Thank you,” she said in that same low tone, but her voice was throatier.
“Sure.”
Tension broken, they finished dinner together in mutual silence. She helped him clean up—a misnomer, since all they had to do was throw the leftovers in the fridge and trash the empty containers. She stood awkwardly in the kitchen for a moment before Peirce realised she was waiting to ask him something.
“Need anything?”
“Do you have an extra blanket? A pillow?”
“Yeah.”
“If you don’t mind, I was going to sleep on the couch.”
“Well, that’s a problem.”
Her eyes widened. “It is?”
“Yeah. See, I was planning on sleeping on the couch.”
“I—”
“You get the bed tonight, honey.”
She didn’t seem quite sure how to respond to the courtesy, so he did the only thing he could think of to move the conversation along.
“It’s been a long day for me, so you should know now that tonight I need my beauty rest. It’ll break your heart, but I can’t be between the sheets with you until tomorrow.”
She rolled her eyes and went past him to the bedroom.
No reason for her to know that the thought of being under the sheets with her was making him hard. Again.
“Good night, Peirce,” she said.
“Right. Good luck.”
Good luck? With what? Crashing and getting a few hours of shut eye?
“And Peirce?”
He looked at her. She was undoing her hair and the soft tendrils falling around her face made her look like too damn much of a temptation.
“I’m sorry you can’t make it to bed tonight,” she said with a shy smile. The door closed softly behind her.
Dammit.
Chapter 6