Page 44 of After Tonight

She was going to be up late tonight. And she’d kind of enjoyed their morning walk, so she might have to get him up early again tomorrow.

Yeah, she needed a nap.

She closed up her computer and tucked everything back into her bag. Then she pulled her bun down and shook her hair out. She yawned widely as she lay down where she’d spent the night, snuggling into the pillow that smelled like Derek.

* * *

She was asleep on his couch again.

Derek stood at the end of the couch, watching Riley for a long moment. She slept like the dead. He hadn’t been quiet when he’d come into the house. In fact, he’d made more noise than he’d really needed to. Her car was still in his drive and he’d assumed she was working. And yeah, he’d wanted to distract her. Just like when they were kids and he’d make up excuses to go into the kitchen where she was studying, or through the living room when she was trying to watch TV. He wanted her attention.

But even stomping his feet on the porch and letting the front screen door slap shut hadn’t awakened her.

He shook his head. Poor thing. She was exhausted from keeping him up late and getting him up early. He started to reach out to tickle her foot, but he paused just before touching her.

His eyes slowly climbed up the length of her leg to the curve of her ass, then up to the strip of skin peeking out where her shirt had ridden up on her waist. And suddenly he had a better idea. Or a more fun idea, anyway.

He’d been thinking about her all day. About how she’d driven him to get himself off in the shower. About how he’d announced that fact to her. About her stunned reaction.

And now she was asleep on the couch. As if she had nothing on her mind at all. Certainly nothing that would cause her to toss and turn instead of sleep.

Yeah, he simply wasn’t wired to let Riley be. Especially when he was worked up over her.

He pivoted and headed for the bathroom, stripping as he went, dropping his clothes on the floor wherever they came off. This was how he lived when he didn’t have a guest. And it was how he’d live if he had a serious girlfriend.

Might as well practice.

In the bathroom, he cranked up the radio that sat on one end of the vanity. He banged cupboards open and shut. He padded through the living room to the kitchen, naked, to retrieve his electric screwdriver from the cupboard by his back door. Then he’d headed back into the bathroom to tighten the screw on the towel rod. Yeah, he could have used a regular screwdriver, but the electric screwdriver was faster and would get the screw nice and tight. And it was a lot louder.

He returned the screwdriver to the cupboard, walking back through the living room as if he owned the joint. Which he did.

A glance at the couch showed that Riley was sleeping through it all.

Or at least she had her eyes shut.

He didn’t stop and study her, but he did see that her breathing wasn’t quite as soft and even as before, and he had a suspicion that she was sneaking a peek.

Exactly as he’d planned.

He grinned and headed back into the bathroom. He showered for the second time, rinsing off the dirt he’d cleaned out of the arched ceiling at the church and the dirt and grease he’d acquired from changing Gladys Jenkins’s tire when he’d seen her pulled over on his way between the church and the community center, where he’d pulled a bunch of chairs out of the storage area in the basement.

And as he showered, he used his hand on his cock only to apply soap. But he definitely thought of Riley and knew that she was now lying on his couch, thinking about him in the shower, and what he’d told her about his earlier shower.

He was whistling along to Brett Young by the time he shut the water off and started toweling off.

But he left the towel in the bathroom.

He walked down the hall to his bedroom, the way he always did. Which took him right past the doorway that opened into the living room.

He didn’t look in, but he heard her.

And what he heard froze him in mid-step.

It was a moan.

And then, “Derek,” said in a husky, needy voice.

He slowly turned. Riley was still on the couch, her eyes were still shut—but her hand was down the front of her shorts.

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