Tall, Tatted and Tempting (The Reed Brothers 1)

I open the fridge and bend over see what they have to drink, and when I stand up, Matthew is looking at me over the top of the door. “What are you doing?” he asks. His eyes are rimmed in red and bloodshot, and his face is pale.

“Getting something to drink,” I whisper. “Can I get you anything?”

He shakes his head. His gaze darts down to my bare legs, and I tug on the hem of Logan shirt. “Nice shirt,” he says. He jerks a thumb toward Logan. “Did you two have a fight?”

I look over at Logan too. He’s sleeping soundly, his mouth hanging open. “No,” I whisper. “Why would you think that?”

“Wait.” He stops like he’s thinking about something. “Why are you still here? Are you spending the night?”

I nod, lifting a bottle of water to my lips.

“Logan’s girls never spend the night.” He looks amused. But I don’t understand why.

“He insisted,” I whisper.

“Why are you whispering?” he whispers loudly and dramatically.

“Logan’s asleep,” I reply.

“He’s deaf.” He grins.

Oh, yeah. I forgot. It’s so easy to forget that he can’t hear. I laugh and shrug.

Suddenly, he turns on his heel and runs back to the bathroom. He’s sick again, but it sounds like his stomach is empty. I open drawers beside the sink until I find a drawer with towels in it. I wet one with some cool water, and I meet him when he’s coming out of the bathroom with it. He takes it from me with a heavy sigh and dabs his face with it. “Do you need anything?” I ask.

“Ginger ale,” he says. “There’s some in the fridge.”

I nod and go back in that direction. While I’m there, I grab an empty margarita mix bucket off the counter. I start down the hallway, and assume his door is the one with the open doorway. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands. I put the bucket in front of him. “For later,” I say.

“Thanks,” he says as he takes a sip of the ginger ale. I take the towel from his hands and go back to the bathroom, getting it cold again. When I go back in the room, he’s laying down, so I gently put the towel on his forehead and turn to walk out. “Don’t break his heart,” he says.

He’s puking his guts out and all he’s worried about is me breaking Logan’s heart.

“I’m just here for the night,” I say.

He snorts. It comes out more like a snuffle. But I get it. He doesn’t believe me. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says.

I turn out his light as I leave the room, and close the door behind me.

The washer has stopped quite some time before, and I take what’s in the dryer out and see that the pile on top of the washer is growing. I can’t see letting their things get all wrinkled, so I stand there and fold them, and I fold what’s coming out of the dryer, too. I flip my laundry into the dryer, and then I remember the huge pile of laundry in the hallway, so I start a load of their things. Might as well. I’m not doing anything else.

I walk back to the kitchen, and Logan is snoring. His hair hangs all tousled over his forehead, and I wonder if his mother ever used to watch him sleep like this.

The kitchen is a mess, so I grab a trash bag from the pantry and start packing pizza boxes away. Then I put up all the food that’s on the counter, and give it a good scrub. The kitchen is all nice and sparkly before I go back to bed.

I yawn and close the bedroom door behind me. But this time, I don’t feel the need to lock it.

***

The bed dips in the middle of the night, and I startle awake. My heart starts pounding like a jackhammer and I scoot to the edge of the bed. “What are you doing?” I ask.

It’s Logan, and the room is dark, so he can’t see my face or hear my voice. He rolls to his side, away from me, snuggling deeply into the pillow. He makes this adorable smacking noise with his mouth as he settles. He reaches back and jerks the blankets off of me, tugging them onto him.

He doesn’t really think he’s going to sleep in here, does he? I could go and get on the couch, but he’s already snoring. He’s sound asleep. I lean up and look into his face. He doesn’t stir. He’s not going to try to put the moves on me. He’s just going to sleep.

I roll over, curling into myself, because it’s chilly without a blanket. I could go and get the one from the couch, I guess. I know he had one out there. But I’m afraid I’ll wake him if I get up. I grab the edge of the blanket he just stole from me and pull it back over to my side, just enough to cover half of me. He doesn’t move. So, it must be all right.

Logan

I wake up slowly, immediately aware there’s a warm body pressed against mine. I raise my head and look down at the leg thrown across my thighs. There’s a delicate arm wrapped across my chest, and a black head of hair with a blue streak tucked under my chin, right beside my heart.

Her thigh is naked and it feels so f**king good that I don’t want to move. Her shampoo tickles my nose and I wonder how I ended up in bed with her. I know all we did was sleep. My guess is that I got up to pee in the middle of the night and came back to my bed by accident. How she got wrapped around me is another story.

I lay my head back against the pillow and look up at my cracked ceiling. I didn’t mean for this to happen. And I don’t want her to think that I just want her in my bed. That I only want to sleep with her. But I do want to sleep with her. Right now, I want to roll her over and slide the pink panties she made me turn around for last night slowly down her legs. I want to kiss her from the soles of her feet to the insides of her thighs. I look down at her thigh again. I can’t resist it. I reach out and lay my hand on it. She wiggles and presses harder against me, her br**sts cushioned by my chest.