Page 28 of After Tonight

Or had his thoughts ever really left Riley? Because he’d just been kind of wondering what he could substitute for the morning-coffee-creamer thing for a woman who didn’t use coffee creamer.

But it wasn’t hard to imagine her without clothes. Her nipples would probably be pale pink to go with her pale skin. And she seemed the type to shave everywhere. He wasn’t at all sure why he thought that, but yeah, he really would put money down on Riley being bare. And she might have some hidden tats.

And he suddenly wanted to know all of that.

“What the hell, Derek?” she asked, snapping her fingers in front of him.

“What?”

“Are you actually thinking about me without clothes on?”

How the hell did she know that? “It just kind of happened,” he admitted.

“But I’m like a sister to you. Right?”

She said the last word as if she would take no other answer. And the answer should be easy. It was yes. Absolutely. Up until about twenty minutes ago.

“It’s just a reflex,” he said, frowning. “Calm down.”

Was it so horrible that he might think about her as more than a sister? But yeah, to her, probably. He was just a pain-in-the-ass guy who’d been in her way forever and who had never gotten his shit together enough to even leave home.

And what the hell was that?

Riley Ames was not going to make him feel like a loser. Plenty of women thought he was damned amazing. God level, in fact. Yeah, he fucking loved that. And loved that she knew that. He wasn’t saving lives like Kyle or protecting the town like Scott, but he was making people here happier. Mostly female people, sure, but when they felt better about themselves, the people around them benefitted. It was a proven psychological fact that people were more productive and nicer to the people they interacted with when they felt good. Great sex was like eating healthy and working out and vacation. He was like their trainer.

He still lived in his hometown and there was nothing fucking wrong with that. No matter what Riley thought. She was the least clingy person he knew. She didn’t even cling to fond childhood memories or the idea of being in her hometown every year at Christmas. Some clinginess wasn’t all bad.

“Are we cooking or what?” he asked crossly.

He was hungry. And up early. And turned on by a woman who was off-limits. And who he didn’t really like that much anyway.

The least he could get was a good breakfast.

* * *

She was making crepes with Derek Wright. How had that happened?

“That one’s the best yet.” He slid the last crepe onto the plate and handed it to her. “Now what?”

Riley narrowed her eyes. This was nice. He wasn’t giving her a hard time. He wasn’t messing around. He was following her directions and making crepes that were turning out to be really good.

“Blueberry pomegranate chai seed jam,” she said, reaching for the jar in the sack she’d brought in with her. “I roll it all inside, but you can put it on top if you want.”

“Okay. Sounds good.”

It did?

He wasn’t going to tease her about her not-plain-old-strawberry jam? He wasn’t going to give her a hard time about the chai seeds?

That was nice. And weird.

It was like he was lost in thought or distracted or something. Or maybe it was like he was being normal. How he was with other people. Not her, of course. Derek was never not messing around and not giving her a hard time. But she assumed he was normal and not irritating at least some of the time with other people. He seemed to be well-liked.

She spooned jam onto the crepes and Derek rolled them up. Then she dolloped whipped cream on top, and he took the plates over to the table. She frowned at his back.

But this was definitely not how he usually acted with her. Hell, the last time they’d been alone in a kitchen together, he’d started a food fight.

Her mother had been pissed. Until Derek teased her and got her laughing and charmed her right out of her bad mood.

---