Desire.
It had been a while, but I was pretty sure I knew it when I saw it.
Maybe those weren’t the best choices of words.
He certainly didn’t mean shit and bitch.
He meant cock and pussy.
Which meant I wasn’t the only one having a difficult time trying not to think about what happened in the bathroom, what could have happened in the bathroom.
“Gunner…” I started, knowing my voice was a bit thicker than it usually was. Which was likely because knowing that he was thinking about what happened too – not just shrugging it off like I wondered if he might – it was doing things to my system again.
“I’m gonna go take a shower,” he told me, standing suddenly. “If you left any hot water,” he added, clearly trying to lighten the heaviness between us.
He closed the bedroom door quietly, then went into the bath.
And me, the creep that I apparently was, pictured him in there, stripping off his clothes, exposing those strong muscles I knew he was made of, getting to see the tattoos he covered himself in fully.
Maybe I even thought about what he was likely doing in there. Once he got under the hot water. Once he knew he was alone.
Reaching down to grab his cock.
Thinking of me.
My body sizzled to life at that, the thought of his hand stroking his cock because of me, because he couldn’t get me out of his mind.
My own hand slid down my body, reaching between my legs, trying to get rid of the tension that had been like a coil turned too tightly in my core most of the day.
I was only aware that the shower had turned off after the orgasm ripped through me, making me have to bite into my lip to keep from crying out. But even so, I knew I hadn’t been totally silent.
And I couldn’t shake the idea that there was a chance that he had heard me.
Which made me stay in the bedroom like a freaking child all day.
“Coffee’s fresh.”
It was probably around dinner time when his voice called down the hall saying those beautiful, beautiful words.
Maybe the only words that could get me out of bed, and make me face him, all the while praying I was wrong, and that my embarrassment wasn’t right there on my face.
“Are you all cooked out?” he asked into the silence between us as I made my coffee, taking a long sip of the too-hot liquid, feeling it burn all the way down. “Just want to know if I should be throwing a sandwich together,” he added.
“I’ll cook,” I offered, knowing it was a good distraction. And a way to make it look like I wasn’t hiding all day. “It will likely be my last chance for the rest of the trip.”
“Fuck that. You’re cooking me something in your new place before I leave. As payment,” he added when I shot him a raised-brow look over my shoulder.
“I’ve already paid you a lot,” I told him as I went into the fridge, finding he had fully stocked it again.
“Call it a tip then. For being such a patient, good-natured companion,” he added, making me laugh as I turned to him, wondering if he was being serious. He wasn’t. His lips were curved up too. “There it is,” he said, giving me a nod. “Told you it isn’t all so dire,” he added. “I’m gonna go fill up the generator. It’s gonna go dark for a few. But then we should get through the night.”
“Okay,” I agreed, pulling out half of the fridge’s contents onto the counter, deciding to make something big, even if I was really just winging it.
“Alright,” he said about an hour and a half later when I finally got dinner in front of him. “What am I eating?” he asked, moving some of the food around on his plate. “It’s covered in cheese, so I already know it’s gonna be banging.”
“It’s eggplant parm. Hopefully,” I added, making an unsure face. “It’s my first attempt. And I didn’t have a recipe, so I was winging it most of the time. And then just some roasted brussels sprouts and a salad.”
“Went all out,” he observed, and I wondered if he knew I had done so because I needed something to distract me from the idea that he maybe, possibly overheard me earlier.
But he said nothing.
He implied nothing.
We just ate dinner, talking about Ranger and his job as a “babysitter,” about this cabin, about the small farm Gunner grew up on with his veteran father and even older veteran grandfather, chopping wood, bailing hay, fixing things, exploring the woods, fishing, all the outdoorsy stuff that seemed to help shape him into the man he was today.
He didn’t ask me about my childhood, didn’t poke and prod the way most people would do to take the brunt of the conversation off their shoulders. He simply… shared. If you met this man, this rough-and-tumble man, your first thought wouldn’t be that he was the sharing sort, the talking sort. But there in a small cabin in the middle of nowhere, just the two of us around, he gave me all the little pieces of his childhood, even going over the loss of his grandfather, but then cutting off suddenly at his entry into the military.