Zip, Zero, Zilch (The Reed Brothers 6)

“I th-think it’s g-getting worse,” she says.

“Would you grab a bowl or something?” I ask her. I reach for the phone on her bedside table and call downstairs.

She comes back and puts the bowl under the leak, but soon there’s already two inches of water in the bowl. That’s not going to last long.

“Wh-what do we d-do now?”

“Maintenance is on the way,” I tell her. I look at her. Finally look at her. She’s wearing a T-shirt, and I can see the elastic leg of her panties when she turns. “Why don’t you go in my room and wait?” She looks down and flushes.

“Oh, crap,” she says. She pulls a drawer open and gets a pair of shorts. I can’t draw my eyes away from that perfect round ass. I know, I’m a rude fucker, but I can’t look away.

“Damn, that’s pretty,” I murmur. I bite my cheek, trying to take my mind off it. I’m sitting here in my boxers and nothing else, trying not to let her see how hard I’m getting. While my ceiling leaks on our heads.

She steps into the hallway and puts on her shorts. When she comes back, all that beautiful skin is covered up. Just my luck. Her bra is hanging on the end of the bed. I hook it with my finger and hold it up. “Do you need this?”

She jerks it from my hand and tosses it into a drawer. She slams it shut with her hip. I want to lift her shirt and pull her waistband out so I can see the top edge of her panties, but that would be rude, considering she hasn’t invited me to do it, and my ceiling is about to fall in.

I scrub a hand down my face. Now I know she’s not wearing a bra. Fuck me. The doorbell rings.

“I’ll get it,” she says.

A man wearing a one-piece jumpsuit comes into the room, and the building’s night manager is following him. She’s holding a clipboard and she stops in the doorway, her gaze raking down my body.

Crap. I figured maintenance would come and would be a man. That’s what I get for having a gender bias, I guess. The manager’s eyes look all over my chest, taking in my tattoos and piercings. I want to cross my arms and block the view, she’s being so crass. I hear Peck blow out a breath and she turns and leaves the room.

“I don’t know what happened,” I start to explain.

The maintenance man is already leaving, though, and he darts out the front door. A few minutes later, I hear pounding on the level above us, and the trickle slows to a drip.

Peck comes back into the room and pushes one of my shirts into my hand. I smile at her and tug it over my head. I should probably go and get some pants, and if it wasn’t the middle of the night, I would have already done that.

Stomping feet come back down the hallway. The maintenance guy appears. “The people upstairs have a broken pipe,” he says. “I turned the water off, and I’ll get a crew in to clean up the water tomorrow. We can fix the ceiling, but not for a few days.”

The lady is taking notes, and she hands me a work order to sign. I look down at it. I already took my contacts out, so I can’t read it. “Can you look at that and sign it for me?” I ask Peck.

She narrows her eyes at me in question, but takes it and reads it really quickly.

“I hope this doesn’t inconvenience you too much,” the manager says. She smiles at me. It’s full of invitation.

“We’ll make do,” I say. And then I realize that I don’t have anywhere else for Peck to sleep. Fuck.

Peck signs my name on the paper and hands it back to the woman. She passes me her business card, and she has written a personal note on it. Peck intercepts it, reads it, and rips it into two pieces. Then she lays a hand on my arm, and I can feel her index finger as it begins to tap.

“Thanks,” she says. “But we’re all threesome’d out, after the blonde last week.” She looks at me and raises her brow. “Right, dear?”

The workman snickers into his fist, but he covers it when the manager glowers at him.

Peck presses the torn pieces of paper into the woman’s hand. “Thanks for the offer, though.”

The woman leaves in a huff, slamming the front door behind her. The man high-fives me, laughs out loud, and then he walks out, too. “See you tomorrow, dude,” he calls back over his shoulder as the door closes.

“What a mess,” I say, looking around.

“I’ll c-call for a c-car,” Peck says. She reaches for her bag.

“What? Why?” I grab the bag and put it behind my back, hanging it from my index finger. “You can’t leave.” I haven’t even had her here for one night.

She motions to the bed. “My b-bed is now a p-pool.”

If I could think of one way to get a woman wet in bed, it wouldn’t be from a leak in the ceiling. I jerk a thumb toward my room. “I have a king bed in my room.” I grin at her. “We can share.” But inside, my stomach is clenching in terror, because I know she’s not ready to have sex with me. Not even close.

She puts her hands on her hips. “I am not s-sleeping with you.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch.” Just don’t go. Stay.

She looks down at my leg. “I am not p-putting you on the c-couch with a b-bad leg.”

“Well, I’m not putting you on the couch. You’re my guest.”

“I can just go home—”

“Your birth mother will be there.”

She takes a deep breath. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I won’t try to fuck you,” I rush to say. “We can sleep in the same bed without…doing…anything else.”