Page 43 of Faking It with the Forward

“Down here, Sunshine.” I grapple for my phone on the bedside table and turn on the flashlight, shining it toward the chair. Except there is no chair, or at least it’s on its side. Reese is crumpled on the floor in all his bare-chested glory, rubbing his head.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” Fuck. Does he have a concussion? Or a broken bone? What if he’s injured? A million injuries run though my head as I scramble off the end of the bed down to him on the floor. One of them being, how the hell will I explain this to Coach Green?

“I’m fin—”

A tap sounds at the door. “You two okay in there?” Reid’s muffled voice calls out. “I heard… something. It could’ve been sex, or it could’ve been a serial killer breaking in. I just wanted to check.”

“We’re okay, Reid,” Reese says, stifling a laugh. “Thanks for checking on us.”

“Sure, um… Twy?” His voice sounds like it’s right next to the door. “You okay?”

“All good,” I call, my voice scratchy with sleep.

“Alright, I’ll leave you guys alone.”

Neither of us speak, listening to the sound of his feet padding down the hall and the click of his door. When I look back at Reese he’s sitting inches away, sprawled out on the floor. I kneel before him, resting my light on the floor. “That was sweet,” I say, reaching for his arm to feel for any breaks or swelling. “You know there’s still that ongoing case in North Dakota where four college students were slaughtered in their house one night.”

His lips curve. “No, I didn’t know that.”

“Then there’s Ted Bundy and the sorority house murders.”

“Mmhmm.” He mumbles, watching me as I assess for injuries.

I apply light pressure to his wrist. “Any pain here?”

“No.”

“Did you hit your head?” I hold the light up to his face to check his pupils. He winces from the light and pushes my hand away.

“No.”

“Swelling? Contusions?” I move closer, pressing my fingers to his chest, his very muscular, defined chest. He grunts another no, and as I get lower, checking his kidneys, his hand snaps out and cinches around my wrist. “I’m good, Sunshine. Nothing’s broken, but you gotta stop touching me like that.”

He shifts, as though he’s uncomfortable, and I start to question it, when my eyes land below the waist of his shorts.Oh.

My eyes lift, meeting his for a beat, right before his drop down to my chest and the black boy shorts covering my lower half.

“Where’s my sweatshirt?” His Adam’s apple bobs when he swallows.

“I got hot and took it off. It’s in the bed somewhere.” His eyes are glued to my top, which isn’t exactly sexy. “Do you want—”

“Get back in the bed, Twyler,” he says, voice gruff and filled with warning.

I grab the phone and sit on the edge of the bed, and push back on my heels, scooting back to the middle.

He stands, groaning, and holding his back. “Did you—”

“It’s not the fall. It’s the chair. Just slept weird.” He bends to shift the chair upright.

There’s no way I can inflict that on him again. Not if it’s causing him pain and if the chair itself won’t support him. “How about,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat, “we share the bed and stay on our own sides.”

He straightens and I see the length of him, the full glory of all six-foot-four of Reese Cain, shirtless and in nothing but shorts, the front tented with an obvious erection. It was one thing to feel it pressed against my ass, but a whole other to see the thick bulge straining at his shorts. The first one I blew off like it was just biology, I was sitting on him for god’s sake, but now that I see the heat flickering in the back of his eyes, I know better.

Reese Cain is horny.

“You sure?” he asks, not so subtly adjusting himself.

“Yes,” I slide back to one side of the bed, pressing against the pillow. I turn off the flashlight, preferring the darkness right now. “It’s your bed, you shouldn’t be uncomfortable.”

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