Page 9 of Floored

Honestly, I felt a little relieved I could see all of him clearly, so I took the shirt and walked through the second door, which wasn't more than a large closet. A closet it may have been, but it gave me a necessary moment to breathe. As I quietly tugged off my beer-soaked shirt, I studied a few pictures taped up on the wall. Jude had his arm slung around a guy with a similar face. Based on how Jude looked now—I'd pegged him in his early thirties—the picture was easily fifteen years old, both men wearing a team jersey in bright green. A soccer jersey, I thought with a tiny smile. No wonder. Maybe he played in high school.

Before I left the privacy of the closet, I took a moment to be completely vain. I tugged my phone out of my purse and used the camera feature to gauge just how shitty I looked after my run in the rain.

With a wince, I caught sight of my hair. Frizz-tastic. The phone went back in my purse, and I did what I could with my hands and an elastic band, trying to wind my hair into a bun and anchor it on the top of my head. With a pinch of my cheeks and a deep breath to gather myself, I had to take a beat. You know the kind. Where you recognize the ramifications of being alone in a room with a bed and a hot British man who made my thighs squeeze together when he said things like, utterly perfect.

"Would you like another drink?" he called out.

A metaphorical door opened with those five words. Sometimes, just by nature of studying what I did, I thought about situations as if they were playing out in a book. Was the character making a sympathetic choice? Could the reader understand why—based on previous history, cultural norms, established patterns in the narrative—why things were decided in the way they were?

In my silence, he spoke quietly. "We don't have to, of course. But I'd be remiss not to offer the opportunity for privacy in light of our conversation earlier."

He was giving me an out. We could go straight back downstairs, and he wouldn't hold it against me. We'd take our places where we sat earlier and probably engage in some heavy, harmless flirting until I left to catch my train back to Oxford. I'd never see him again, but I'd go home with a story about the night I wished I indulged a bit. I'd go back to my small flat, get in bed alone, and I'd wonder what would have happened if I'd stayed for an extra drink.

The strap of my purse bit into my skin where I clutched it in my fingers. On one hand, I was not a sleep with a guy I'd met that night kind of girl. No judgment, I had friends back in Washington who were that type. More power to them and all that. It just wasn't me.

Partially because I'd never met anyone who'd made me want to sleep with them on the night I met them.

And Jude just about had me panting on that stool, whispering naughty soccer things in my ear. Want wasn't the problem.

If I left, if I took the out, I'd regret it.

I'd wonder. I'd wish. And I'd lament the fact that I didn't take a chance and learn how a man like him kissed. And just about more than anything, I hated feeling like I'd missed out.

"What the hell, right?" I whispered.

I shoved the jacket back into my purse and took a deep breath before I left the tiny room.

His back was to me when I cleared the doorway, and Lord, his frame was glorious. Tall and broad with strong shoulders and slim hips. His hands were big where they held the whiskey bottle, his arms roped with muscle and a few tattoos that I couldn't make out.

"Sounds perfect."

For a moment, he froze, like he hadn't expected me to say that. But when he turned, a pleased grin covered his stupid-handsome face.

"It may be a rubbish drink." Setting the whiskey down, he crouched in front of one of the boxes on the floor. "I have ginger ale and soda water, both room temp."

When I grimaced, he laughed.

"I know," he said. "It's a tragedy, to be sure."

"Ginger ale, I guess."

Jude went to work, fixing two rubbish drinks while I wandered the space and trailed my hand along a small bar cart lined with bottles in all shapes and sizes.

Opposite of the boxes was a daybed, and I smiled at the sight of it.

"A thing for beds then too?" he asked. This question had his voice pitched lower, and the suggestiveness was obvious.

"I wanted a bed like that when I was younger." The comforter was basic blue and white stripes and adorned by a simple white pillow. But the frame, an ornate white and gold metal, was straight out of my ten-year-old fantasy.

"And your parents didn't oblige? The horror," he teased.

I sighed. It didn't feel like the kind of night when you said things like, well, my dad was a shit ton older than my mom, he died of a heart attack when I was little, she freaked out and decided being a single mom wasn't her jam so she bolted, leaving us in the custody of my older half-brother.

"I shared a room with my twin sister until we were fourteen, so bunk beds were pretty much a done deal."

He hummed, bracing one of those broad shoulders on the wall. His dark eyes tracked me as I continued exploring. "Twins, eh?"

I gave him a warning look. "If you make a dirty joke right now, I'm out of here."

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