Fool Me Once

Keegan—who I now realize is the sleeping man—jumps out of bed. “What’s going on?” He flies across the room as if he’s going to protect me. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” I inhale and exhale. “I thought you were an intruder.”

He takes a deep breath. “Jesus, woman. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Me? You scared the crap out of me! A little heads-up would’ve been nice.”

Keegan looks at me sheepishly. “I was afraid if I told you, you’d tell me to go home.”

“You’re the one who was being short with me after I mentioned I was with Brenton.” I give him a knowing look.

“I know,” he says, taking my hands in his and bringing them up to his lips to kiss the tops of my knuckles. “That’s actually why I came over. I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow. I hate what’s happening between us.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way. I’m dating you. I’m only friends with Brenton.”

“I know,” he repeats.

“Do you trust me?”

He closes his eyes briefly then opens them back up. “I do trust you,” he says with complete seriousness in his tone. “It’s him I don’t trust.” He swallows roughly.

“Then you need to trust me enough to make my own judgments. I wouldn’t bring someone around Zane who is bad.”

Keegan nods once and drops my hands, gripping my hips. “Can I stay the night? I really fucking miss you.”

Tilting my head to the side and up, I place a finger to my chin and tap dramatically, pretending like I have to think about it for a long moment. Keegan looks nervous for a good second, until my smile cracks, and he realizes I’m only joking.

“You think you’re funny,” he deadpans. “I’ll show you funny.” He picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

“Wait!” I whisper-yell, not wanting to wake up Zane. I’m surprised he slept through my screaming earlier. “I need to take a shower.”

“Sounds good to me.” He turns around and heads in the direction of the bathroom instead of the bed. “I can’t wait to get you all wet.” He smacks my ass playfully, and I yelp.

After we’re both undressed, we step into my shower. It’s not big at all, and there’s no way we could have sex in here or do anything like I’ve read in romance books, but I love being naked and close to Keegan. He washes my body, making it a point to pay extra special attention to my private areas, and in return I wash his. After I shampoo and condition my hair, we get out. I hand him a towel and we both dry off.

“Can you see if I left any clean clothes here?” he asks, wrapping the towel around his waist. “I think I left a couple things.”

“You did. For sure some boxers, and I think a shirt too.”

Since I never grabbed my clothes, I wrap myself up in my towel and knot it at the front so it stays in place. I walk over to my dresser to search for his clothes, while Keegan goes to my door and closes it.

I’m closing one drawer and about to open another when Keegan’s arms circle around my body. Before I can protest, which let’s be honest, I wasn’t going to do anyway, he tugs at the knot of my towel and it drops to the ground. I turn around and feign shock, and the corner of his lip curls in amusement. When his gaze drops to my breasts, his smirk disappears and his eyes become hooded with lust.

He lifts and carries me over to the bed, playfully throwing me onto the edge. Wanting to tease him, I turn onto my hands and knees and crawl toward the head of the bed, sticking my ass up in the air. When I sneak a peek over my shoulder, his mouth falls open and his towel drops to the floor. I falter slightly when I catch a glimpse of his thick cock standing at attention.

“Stop right there,” he commands, and I halt in my place. “Holy fuck,” he murmurs.

I watch as he climbs onto the bed behind me. On his knees, he leans forward and runs a hand down the center of my back.

“Is there anything about you that isn’t perfect?”

I don’t think he’s looking for an answer, so I don’t reply. But my heart beats against my rib cage. I’ve never been called perfect before, but Keegan always says it to me. When Sierra and I were growing up, we could never do anything right in our father’s eyes, so eventually we embraced it and made it a point to only do wrong. Looking back now, I know it wasn’t the way to handle things. Whether we were good or bad, we wouldn’t have gotten his attention. All we ended up doing was stressing out our mother, who had to deal with our father.