Page 27 of Need Him Like Oxygen

It was right then I knew it was going to be okay, that he wasn’t going to harp on it, make me feel weird about it.

Why would he?

Fingering women was probably as casual to him as shaking someone’s hand.

There was no explanation for the way that thought sent a pang through my chest.

Nope.

No rational explanation at all…

CHAPTER SEVEN

Dav

It took every ounce of self-control I’d built up over the years to let her walk out of the bathroom, inching her way toward the living room.

As soon as I was alone, I reached into my pants, freeing my cock and giving in to the need that had become actual pain as I finally got to see her, touch her, taste her in the ways I’d been imagining for so long.

It was a hollow sort of release, though, leaving me antsy and unsatisfied since what I really wanted was the woman flicking through the channels on the TV in my living room.

On a frustrated sigh, I switched the bedding to the dryer, then gathered the brush and detangler before making my way back out to the living room, standing behind Cinna as she picked at yogurt and watched some reality show about home renovations.

“Didn’t have you pegged for a DIYer,” I said, wanting to break the chilled silence that had grown between us as I carefully brushed the knots out of her hair.

To that, she snorted, the edges of her lips tipped up. “I’ve never even painted the walls in my apartment,” she admitted. “I don’t even have a dining table,” she added. “But I like seeing other people, you know, make a home.”

There was something pointed in her words.

Like maybe she didn’t see her apartment as a home.

I guess that made sense, since she likely never spent more than five or six hours a day there, just long enough to catch some sleep and shower before heading back out to work.

“How come I’ve never been invited to your place?” I asked, wincing as I worked at a particularly big tangle.

“No one’s ever been to my place,” she admitted, shrugging. “You don’t need to be gentle with me, by the way. I can take it.”

“Your ability to handle the pain isn’t really the point, love,” I told her, redoubling my efforts to make sure I didn’t so much as pull at her scalp.

“Stop calling me that,” she said a moment later, voice low.

“Why?” I asked, running the brush through her knot-free strands, satisfied that I’d gotten them all. “Because you don’t like it?” I added. Then, leaning down near her ear, “Or because you like it too much?”

With that, I turned and walked away from her, busying myself with answering some texts from my soldiers and associates.

I wasn’t a workaholic like Cinna, but being a capo came with responsibilities that you really couldn’t shirk, lest your men get the idea that they don’t have to answer to you anymore.

Across the room, Cinna was doing the same, typing away with one hand, getting more and more frustrated by each passing moment as she took twice as long to answer as usual.

She was a terrible patient.

She had no patience with her own body, wanting things to work like they were supposed to, injuries be damned. Which was exactly why she tried to use the fingers of her braced wrist, only to break off on a groan, cradling the wrist to her chest for a moment.

And her frustration made her prickly and snippy at times.

Most men would likely get sick of it really fast. The thing was, though, I was used to the prickly and snippy and borderline nasty sides of Cinna. What I hadn’t really ever gotten to see before, though, were the sides of her I was seeing in between her bursts of anger.

The softer, the sweeter.

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