Sleeping with the Enemy (An Enemies to Lovers Collection)

“That would give me performance anxiety too.”

“So you’ll feed them?”

Wilder reaches, not at all reluctantly, for his boxers. He slips them on, and dang, seeing him in his funny underwear, almost totally naked, is so hot that I feel like I’ve just jumped into a sauna. I can’t breathe in saunas, and I can’t breathe now. It’s an apt simile.

“I’ll be right back then.”

“Okay.”

I rush past Wilder and head upstairs. After getting Hector back into his tank, I try to make sure it’s well sealed up. “Please, no more escapes. At least for tonight.”

He just ignores me and goes about his spider business.

I hear the can opener cracking into the first tuna can and a round of eager meowing down in the kitchen. I smile to myself, grab my robe off the back of the door, and head downstairs. The universe might subtly be trying to tell me not to go ahead with this, but then again, maybe shit is just random, and the universe can go erf itself right now because Wilder and me? I’ve given up on a lot of things in the past, and they’ve given up on me, but I’m not giving up on this.

Again, it scares the crap out of me, but even that isn’t enough to stop me. Not tonight. And maybe not tomorrow. I know I’m starting to like Wilder and trust him. I’m starting to do all the things I said I wouldn’t do.

If things go south again, I swear I’m becoming a hermit for real and giving up on male kind for life. So things better not go south unless it’s my south or Wilder’s south, going together. That south would be alright, just to be sure, because sometimes directions can be confusing.

CHAPTER 16

Wilder

Esme appears behind me in the kitchen as I’m setting down the last dish of tuna. I can’t imagine what Esme’s tuna bills are every month. Even giving it to the cats as a treat, they eat no less than six cans, and Connie came running at the scent of fish, so I fed her too.

Esme has a huge pink robe on which goes down to her ankles, and it looks like a big, huge, granny-style blanket wrapped around her. I’ve never seen anything hotter in my life, aside from her being naked, that is. Or semi-naked. Or even in her regular clothes.

“I feel like the universe might have it in for us,” I state, setting the can opener onto the counter.

“I was just thinking that too.” She seems pretty astounded that we both think the same things at the same time. Think, not thought, because it’s happened more than once. “But then I also thought Vera was just being Vera, and Hector was just being Hector, though badly timed. It’s not a karmic sign, and there is no bad energy.”

“Alright.”

“Alright,” she echoes back.

Esme’s eyes are huge and bright, her pupils still totally blown. Her lips are clearly ravaged, and she also has some beard burn on her chin and cheeks. Her eyelashes flutter when she adds, “Race you to the bedroom?”

She takes off, nearly tripping on the long robe, but somehow, she manages to avoid disaster and maybe another not-so-great cosmic sign. I let her win because I’m a gentleman and also because by the time I get to the bedroom, Esme’s robe is off, and she is naked on the bed. She’s waiting for me, and damn if it doesn’t make me nearly get my rocks off right there in the doorway.

I shut the door, shutting out the cats and the dog. They can enjoy their snack since I bribed them well. I hope Hector doesn’t sneak under the door and spider-crawl his spider ass back to the wall.

As I walk over to the bed, I shed my underwear. Again. But Esme’s expression is totally worth it. Not just for the ego, either. When I kneel on the bed, she parts her legs and reaches out.

“Are you sure? You’re okay on the bottom?”

“I think you have more control this way. And I trust you not to hurt me.”

“You do?”

“Yes,” she replies, looking up at me with starry eyes now.

The look in her eyes blows me away, and it very nearly blows my balls away, too, especially hearing her say she trusts me while looking at me like that, waiting for me, coming back, and wanting this. I need to do everything, and I need it all at once. I need to be inside her. I need to be touching her, kissing her, and giving her pleasure.

Despite my impatience, I settle for doing one thing at a time. I kiss Esme, and she dives right into it like we haven’t been interrupted fifty-two hundred and eighteen times. As I push her legs apart a little further with my knee, I feel her parting them for me on instinct. I’m amazed we can even vanilla it out right now. I’m pretty big and wide in every single way, while she’s not big or wide in any way at all.