Every Sweet Regret (Orchid Valley 2)

“Oh, inside joke, I guess.” She waves away my confusion. “Anyway, it wasn’t anything freaky. Just . . .” She lifts her right hand and wiggles her fingers. “Normal, single-girl self-maintenance.”

I cover my eyes with one hand. They can’t be trusted, anyway. “It’s like you’re determined to torture me.”

She tugs my hand off my eyes and drags me into her bedroom, where she kicks the door closed behind her and bites back her smile. A small lamp illuminates a room crowded with too much furniture, as if she moved her whole apartment in here, and there’s no room to put space between us.

This isn’t going to help anything.

“Sorry for my lack of filter,” she says. “Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but you’re so damn cute when you’re flustered.” She shrugs. “It’s like putting an ice cream cone in front of me and telling me I can’t lick it.”

Lick it. I squeeze my eyes shut and wrestle my imagination back where it belongs. I should be thinking about anything but Stella’s tongue. “Fuck, Stella. Don’t say shit like that, okay? I’m trying to be a decent guy here.”

Her gaze takes a leisurely stroll to my mouth then across my chest, tripping over my torso before landing just below my belt. Thank Christ I’m in jeans and not athletic shorts, but I’m sure she can still see quite clearly what’s happening south of the border. “I think maybe you should sit. Can’t be too careful with a head injury.” She nods to the couch that’s shoved into the corner. But the second my eyes land on her bed and her twisted sheets, I’m thinking about her writhing and moaning at her own touch.

“I can sit in my own house. Give you some privacy.” Aaaaand now it sounds like I think she’s going to masturbate when I leave. Or like I want her to. Or like I need to be alone so I can imagine her doing it . . . Okay, that last one has a ring of truth to it. “I mean, to get dressed or whatever.”

She smiles. “I don’t have to get dressed for another hour.” She shrugs and steps forward, nudging me backward until I hit the couch. “Sit. Let me take a look at that bump.”

I’m a masochist, so I obey and lower the ice pack when my ass hits the faded blue upholstery. She leans forward to take a closer look, and I have to close my eyes. She’s definitely not wearing a bra.

Turning off one sense only heightens the others, and now I’m obsessed with the smell of the detergent from her shirt and the perfume she probably wore out last night.

This girl is everything I don’t need in my life. She’s wild and unpredictable with the priorities of a college party girl. I would’ve thought she’d outgrown that before graduation, but her time working at Allegiance with Amy proved otherwise.

When I date again for real—and I’m not looking to do that for a long fucking time—I want it to be with someone who’s steady. Someone I can count on to be home every night and who will enjoy the simplicity of a life raising the coolest little girl around and making a home for her.

Someone who won’t leave me because she’s grown “discontent.”

“Are you okay?” Stella’s fingertips ghost over my head wound.

“I’ll be fine.” I fumble for the bag of peas and press it back to my head.

“Open your eyes and look at me,” she says. I obey, and she studies each one. I follow suit and study her irises, the way the green darkens on the outside and is lighter in the middle. She sighs, and her breath floats across my forehead. “Just as I suspected.”

“What?”

“Well, hell, Kace. This is a problem.”

I arch a brow, then immediately drop it. Ouch. “I’m fine, Stella. No concussion. I promise.” My voice sounds husky. It sounds like it would if we were in that bed together and instead of her hand between her legs, it was mine.

“Dilated pupils, accelerated heart rate, inability to focus on a conversation?” She keeps one hand in my hair and braces the other on the back of the couch. She leans forward, her lips brushing my ear. “It looks like you’re turned on.”

I bark out a laugh. Not where I thought she was going with that.

Climbing onto the couch, she puts a knee on either side of my hips, straddling my lap. “Aren’t you?”

“I plead the fifth.” I could recite the whole damn Constitution. I’m sure there’s no amendment strong enough to keep her from feeling the bulge pressing against my fly.

“Stella.” Her name is a desperate plea on my lips. I should ask her to move. Hell, I could pick her up myself and move her off me, but I don’t want to. I’ve thought about her here too many times. My reason is losing to my lust. “Didn’t you just have some guy in here with you last night?”