And just like that the air in the little room turned electromagnetic. Hell, he didn’t know what he was offering. He was fucked up beyond all reason, in a permanent and h
ighly aggravated state of lust for this woman, clinging to sanity by his fingernails. His body screamed for him to say, “Yes,” and beg her to put him out of his misery. Instead, he breathed deeply and endured the unappealing combination of bleach and dryer sheets mixing with the residual taste of bourbon in the back of his throat.
“Uh-uh. No.” She fumbled in her purse and pulled out a cigarette. “You don’t get to do this.” Defiant eyes met his as she placed it between her lips then darted away as she dug out a lighter.
“Do what?”
Her hand shook as she held the flame to the tip of the Camel Unfiltered that Ed and his cronies favored. He watched, impaired and helplessly mesmerized, as she inhaled hard enough to turn the end of the cigarette to a red-hot eye.
“You don’t have to want me. I’m a big girl. I can handle rejection. But you can’t go around deliberately blocking me from a nice guy who does.”
Somebody had to, because the idea of her having “ice cream” with Cooper or anybody else sent jealousy ripping through him with the ferocity of a fifty thousand–volt taser hit. He couldn’t stop himself from going to her any more than he could stop himself from breathing. She retreated until her backside hit the washing machine and her purse hit the floor, but he just kept coming. “I never said I didn’t want you, Roxy.” He ground their lower bodies together, saw her eyes go wide behind a screen of smoke. “Does this feel like I don’t want you?”
Her free hand found his shirtfront and pulled him so close he could count her eyelashes. Her fist nested over his heart like a restless bird. “Then take me, West. I want you, too.”
It sounded so simple and logical, in this moment. But it wasn’t. Roxy wasn’t a logic-based life form. Impulse and chance? Yes. Logic? No. He lowered his chin to her ear. Breathed in skin-warmed honeysuckle along with a waft of smoke. “I’m not in the habit of giving in to things just because I want them.” Then, to completely undermine his words, he dipped his knees and rubbed their bodies together, fitting his cock into the notch between her thighs for one breath-stealing moment.
Her forehead landed in the center of his chest. He closed his eyes to concentrate on the feel of her, and the room took a spin. A bad one. Bad enough he might have weaved on his feet, but he opened his eyes at the same time she looped her arm around his waist. That negligible weight and a stationary focal point on the wall helped anchor him.
She turned her head, so her cheek snuggled his pec. “Nobody has to know.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but somehow strong enough to shatter his heart. “It doesn’t have to mean anything except two people taking the edge off a little attraction.” She laughed, and the hollow sound reverberated through his chest. “The powers that be aren’t going to come down on you because you set aside your high morals for a minute and enjoyed a drunk fuck in the laundry room with your disreputable neighbor. It won’t leave a mark on anyone’s permanent record. I promise.”
That sounded logical, too. There was something fundamentally wrong with it, but just now his marinated brain cells had a hard time separating wrongs and rights. The lazy curls of smoke rising from her cigarette made his eyes burn. The dry smell of tobacco layered unpleasantly with detergent, honeysuckle, and boozy sweat. His sweat. He took a desperate inhale, but it did no good. Why was it suddenly so goddamn hot in here? If he didn’t get cool air quick, he was going to lose it.
“Roxy…”
In his mind, he said, “You’re not disreputable,” and, “You deserve better than a drunk fuck in a laundry room.” And last but not least, “I’m pretty sure you’re going to leave a permanent mark on me either way.” But his stomach chose that moment to call it quits, so the only word that came out of his mouth was, “Shit.”
He disentangled in record speed, took the stairs two at a time, and made it to his bathroom with seconds to spare before hurling some truly unholy curses at Shaun, Tyler, Josh, and their motherfucking circle of life.
Chapter Eleven
“Don’t Come Around Here No More.”
A whistled version of the Tom Petty classic wafted to West’s ears and for one groggy moment transported him to the barracks at Great Lakes, where waking to a random song was the norm rather than the exception. Then the whistling switched to a hum—a female hum—and parts of him woke up faster than his disoriented brain. Eventually the fog from last night’s bender burned off enough for him to realize he was crashed out on his bed, less hung-over than he deserved to be, with the floor vent tuned to K-ROXY.
How had he gotten here? Last thing he remembered was… Fuuuuck. He groaned, rolled onto his back, and flung an arm over his eyes. He’d spent a miserable chunk of last night relieving his stomach of an overabundance of bourbon. Impressions flashed through his mind like a badly edited film. The cool comfort of a wet washcloth pressed to the back of his neck, gentle hands rubbing his shoulders, the minty taste of toothpaste scrubbing the dregs of a whiskey-barrel from his mouth. More minor details followed—two painkillers downed with a long guzzle of water straight from the tap, a slim arm around his waist, guiding him to bed.
He let his arm drop to the pillow and cautiously opened his eyes. Pale light pried around the edges of the dark blue curtains covering the two tall windows flanking the bed. Not bright enough to make him blink, but enough to see someone had left a bottle of Gatorade and two more painkillers on his nightstand. The blissfully cool air told him someone had cranked up the AC as well. No doubt the same someone who had removed his clothes. He lifted the sheet and squinted. All his clothes.
Roxy.
The realization provoked another groan. He managed to suppress it this time, but it was no less heartfelt although it stemmed from wounded pride rather than the aftereffects of too much Kentucky Gold. He opened the Gatorade and gulped down half the bottle along with the ibuprofen. He was grateful to Roxy—sincerely—because taking care of her trashed housemate went above and beyond the call of neighborliness. Though he appreciated waking up in his bed with the ghost of a hangover instead of on his bathroom floor, praying for death, he hated being in a position where anyone had to take care of him. He protected. He served. Not vice versa.
After returning the Gatorade to the nightstand, he settled back against his pillow and stared at the ceiling. That she’d gotten an eyeful of him at such a pathetic moment trapped him in a thorny tangle of guilt and embarrassment. And yeah, it was all the more pathetic given he’d hounded her into the laundry room with the alcohol-impaired intention of convincing her she had better options than going out for ice cream with Cooper. Tough choice, right? Ice cream with an eager, sober, irritatingly sincere firefighter, or an insulting encounter with a cynical cop who couldn’t hold his liquor? What a coin toss. Hopefully once he apologized for being a monumental asshole, and thanked her for tending to him, he’d be able to—
His bedroom door swung opened with the squeak of a hinge. Roxy tiptoed in holding a small stack of folded laundry and made for the dresser along the wall opposite his bed. With her back to him, she leaned over to open a drawer. His mouth went dry.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
She jumped like a cat at his question and dropped the clothes. He immediately felt like a jerk for startling her.
“One of your T-shirts,” she replied before disappearing below the foot of his bed. Her disembodied voice continued, “I tossed your clothes from last night into the wash, along with a few other things. This came out of the dryer so soft and warm I couldn’t resist borrowing it. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Help yourself,” he said to empty space. The shirt wasn’t what he’d been questioning, more her lack of anything in the way of pants.
Her head reappeared. She grabbed hold of the bed knob closest to her, and the sight of her fingers wrapped around the timeworn brass sent his imagination down an X-rated detour. Roxy, holding onto the uppermost rung of the headboard with both hands while he thrust into her hard enough to rattle the whole frame to pieces. He added another X to the detour rating when she pulled herself to her feet and faced him. The clothes she’d dropped were once again a tidy stack, but they didn’t block the sight of his shirt draped over full breasts crowned by high, tight nipples. His mouth itched to taste…to lick one hard point, feel it drag slowly from the center of his tongue to the tip. Her lips parted, and he practically heard her say…
“How’re you feeling this morning?”