Perfume.
I felt myself straighten immediately, stiffening, my arms falling from around him.
“What's up?” he asked, squeezing me and suddenly I wanted him off of me. Away from me.
“You need a shower,” I said, jerking away. My eyes fell as I stepped away from him, crawling back in the bed. “You stink of smoke and booze and perfume,” I snapped, reaching for the remote and turning the volume back up.
I could feel his gaze on me for a long minute before he stepped away, walking over to the dresser, grabbing sweatpants, and going into the hall. The bathroom door shut and the shower water turned on.
And I drowned my very strange, very unwelcome feelings of jealousy in half a bag of Doritos smothered in cheesy dip.
Because jealousy was ridiculous. It was so ridiculous that they needed a new word for how ridiculous it was. He wasn't mine. He wasn't even close to mine. He was a random guy who did something nice for me. So what he kissed me? He was the hottest guy in five states wide, he probably kissed every half-bangable babe he crossed paths with. I wasn't special. I was just ready lips in close proximity to his.
Augh.
I was so stupid.
The shower stopped, the door opened, there was fiddling in the kitchen, and then I heard footsteps coming closer. Like, as in, he was coming back to the bedroom.
I kept my eyes on the TV, eating even though I felt ready to burst.
“Doritos in cold salsa con queso sauce?” He asked, putting his coffee cup on his nightstand.
“Dip,” I corrected, my tone a little snippy.
“What?”
“It's dip, not sauce.”
I could practically feel the eyebrow lift I was getting. Couldn't see it because I was refusing to look at him.
“What's got your panties in a bunch?”
Oh, the asshole.
Who asked women things like that?
“Nothing.”
“Really? 'Cause you're acting like I'm some lazy house husband who forgot to rinse out his beer cans before he recycled them.”
“Trust me,” I said, my voice cold, “you have no effect on my panties, Reign.”
That was the wrong thing to say.
Like... really wrong.
Like... he saw it as some kind of challenge wrong.
Because he was coming toward me, around the bed, sitting down by my hip. “I have no effect on your panties, huh?”
“Nope.” Aside from the fact that anytime he got within five feet of me, I was turned on as all-get-out for no good reason.
“You're sure about that?” he asked, his voice dipping even lower than usual, the sound feeling like it slipped under my skin and reverberated against all my internal organs. His hand moved outward, stroking up my thigh, slipping slightly inward as he rounded my hip. And I should have pushed him off. I really should have. But I was too busy watching his big, beat up, scarred hand move over my pants, slide up toward the waistband, but not slip under. No, he stroked across my belly, sending a shock of wetness between my legs. As if sensing it, his hand moved downward, pressing hard between my thighs, making me arch up against him, and a throaty gasp to escape my lips. “No, no effect at all,” he said, giving me a grin that would have just... melted my panties if I didn't get a very clear flash of him doing what he was doing to me to another woman. Just hours before.
And I was definitely not that girl.
The girl who was okay with that.
I jerked upright. “You want me,” I started, making my eyes hold his even though the heat there made me want to lay back and tell him to take me, “you don't come to me with hands heavy with the scent of other women,” I snapped, swinging my legs off the bed and storming toward the door.
I half expected him to follow me, to argue with me, or try to change my mind. But he didn't. I took myself out to the couch and settled in, staring at the empty fireplace until I finally passed out.
I woke up sometime later from a nightmare, being jostled up. My eyes shot open to find Reign looking down at me as he carried me back down the hall.
“You were screaming,” he said gruffly, watching my face.
I rested my head against his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of his arms across my back and under my knees.
“Sorry I woke you up,” I murmured, breathing in his scent.
His arms squeezed me tighter, and then I was being lowered into the bed, the sheets still warm from his body. I curled up on my side, pulling my knees to my chest. The lights dimmed. The TV stayed on, but low. Then the mattress depressed behind me as Reign climbed in. The blankets got pulled up.
And then I was in his arms. He scooted in behind me, his body curling around mine, his arm going across my belly, pulling me backward into him.
I was almost asleep, warmed by his body, comforted by his closeness, when he said softly in my ear, “Sorry I'm an asshole.”
I fell asleep smiling.TwelveReignSorry I'm an asshole? Sorry I'm an asshole?
What the fuck had gotten into me?
I didn't apologize. Ever. Not ever. That was another thing that was brow beat into me and Cash from a young age- apologizing was admitting weakness. We were not weak. We did not apologize for anything. We did what we damn well pleased and everyone else just had to man up and deal with that.
And then there I was... fucking apologizing to some chick I knew for two point three seconds for just being myself? For drinking and screwing like I always did? For coming home late? For making her see she wanted me?
Alright. Maybe that was a dick move.
She was traumatized and abused and didn't know me.
But, fuck, walking in on her holding up that gun like she fully intended to use it, legs spread, arms steady... hottest shit I ever saw.
Then she started shaking and I felt like shit for being so fucking stupid. I was trashed. And I never had someone in my house to worry about scaring. It just didn't even cross my mind until I walked into the doorway and there she was.