Laughing, I push a bottle of water toward her. “Glad you like it,” I say.
“I do,” she says, her tone serious now. “Thank you, Owen. I really appreciate you helping me out with…well, with somewhere to live.”
I nod, offering her a small smile. “It’s all good, Sloane,” I tell her. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you want.”
She nods, giving me another small smile before she blows out a breath, pulling her books closer as she opens her laptop.
We spend the next couple of hours or so in relative silence, both of us engrossed in our work. Well, Sloane definitely is. I’m a little bit more distracted, sneaking glances at her across the table every so often. Whatever she’s studying has her riveted, though, her pencil between her teeth every time she stops making notes in her book.
It’s both adorable and very distracting because holy shit, she is just so damn beautiful. Her long blonde hair, her killer body and that smile of hers; when she lets me see it anyway. I mean, I’ve always known she’s beautiful, but somehow now, seeing her here in my home, she’s only gotten better.
Standing, I let out a groan, stretching my arms above my head. Sloane looks over at me, a smile on her face that disappears as her gaze drops lower to where I realize my T-shirt has risen up.
“I think I’m gonna go to bed,” I say, clasping my hands behind my head.
“Okay,” she says, swallowing hard before smiling up at me. “Goodnight.”
Chuckling, I head into the kitchen, grabbing the spare keys from the kitchen drawer. “These are for you,” I say as I walk back over and stand beside her. “I’ll lock up before I go to bed. If you want to put the alarm on, that’s cool. Code is triple eight, nine.”
She looks up at me, an unreadable expression on her face. I smile before heading back to the kitchen to lock the back doors, then making my way to the front door to do the same.
“Done,” I say as I walk back to the table. “Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t,” she says, smiling.
I return the smile, leaning down to drop a kiss on the top of her head without thinking. It’s something I do to Daisy and Alana all the time, sometimes even to Sloane too, but never like this. Never when it’s just the two of us, alone.
It feels kind of intimate, but she doesn’t pull away, doesn’t even flinch, and I take that as a good sign.
“Sleep well, Sloane,” I say, straightening. “I’m just next door if you need anything.”
“Night,” she replies, and I swear I feel her eyes on me the whole walk to my bedroom.
The next morning, I wake early, the sun streaming in through the blinds I left open overnight. I’ve always been a morning person, enjoying the quietness and the chance to get in a morning surf if I don’t have to work or go to class.
Today I have some lessons before an afternoon lab at school, though, so there won’t be any surfing until this afternoon. And I’m kind of hoping Sloane is interested in coming with me again. Last night had been fun being out on the waves with her. Not that it was the first time we’ve ever surfed together. We’ve done it loads of times. But the ocean is a place that relaxes her, and I like seeing Sloane like that.
I roll over, my eyes automatically moving to the wall that separates our bedrooms. I wonder if she’s awake, if she slept okay last night.
I did, even if my sleep was filled with dreams of her that I’m sure are only magnified now that she’s living under the same roof as me. At the time I’d offered for her to move in, I hadn’t even thought about it, and in the days that followed, all I had thought about was how good it was going to be having her all to myself.
Now though, it’s like a sweet kind of torture—having her this close but not being able to touch.
“Shit,” I groan, my hand slipping beneath the sheet as I re-adjust myself, my boxer briefs tight around the morning wood that seems harder than usual. I’m tempted to jerk off, but it feels a little different with the object of my fantasies just a few feet away from me on the other side of the wall.
So instead, I mentally recite the scientific names of the flora on the island in a bid to get my dick to calm the fuck down out of boredom or whatever. In the end, it works, and I throw off the sheet before heading to the kitchen to make some coffee.
“Morning.”
I turn to find Sloane standing in the doorway, dressed in the same clothes she was wearing last night when we were studying. Her hair is messier, though, and there’s an adorable pillow crease on her right cheek.
“Morning,” I say. “You sleep okay?”
Sloane swallows hard, blinking slowly as her gaze dips before moving back up to mine, her cheeks flushing. It takes me a second to figure out why, and then I realize I’m literally standing here in the kitchen in my underwear.
At least my boner is gone, but still.
I hold up a finger before quickly moving into the laundry to grab a clean T-shirt. “Sorry about that,” I say when I return.