Page 30 of Wild Fixation
“You do,” I say. “You’re my knight in shining armor, remember?”
It’s supposed to be a joke, something to lighten this heavy air of guilt, but Seth grimaces. “Knights aren’t supposed to sleep with princes.”
Princes. Is that how he sees me? Some unattainable creature on high?
“I thought princes got to do whatever they wanted,” I say. “I thought they were the ones in charge. You can still be my knight in shining armor while sleeping with me.”
He doesn’t respond, and his silence wriggles a kernel of worry into my brain, but before the conversation can go any worse, Seth gets up, announcing he’s finding us a towel.
I sleep in his bed that night, my head on his broad chest, and I’ve never felt safer in my life.
Chapter Sixteen
Seth
EVERY MUSCLE TENSES THE second I wake. Instinct kicks in, warning me that there’s someone here, someone in my bed, someone who isn’t supposed to be here. Every bit of paranoid readiness I learned in the military screams to the fore in the breathless moment before I realize that the messy mop of hair poking out of my sheets belongs to Jacob.
Jacob.
The previous night rushes through my mind. My instincts were partially correct. Heshouldn’tbe here. Not like this. I tense for an entirely different reason, battling a wave of contentment. He sleeps peacefully on his side, one brown shoulder peeking from the sheets. Everything inside me urges me to kiss it, but I hold myself back and slip as quietly as possible out of the bed.
Jacob murmurs at the shifting of the mattress, but he doesn’t wake as I scoop up any wearable clothing I can find and creep out of the room. A chill rustles across my bare skin when I tip toe my way to the bathroom, praying Mason doesn’t wake up. His door is shut, just as it was last night. He might not have come home at all. I shut myself in the bathroom regardless, cleaning myself up as much as I can before getting dressed.
Jacob and I fell asleep naked and draped over each other. Even after I brush my teeth, the taste of his pleasure loiters in my mouth, hiding under my tongue. A tremor quivers through me, but I ignore it, slapping cold water onto my face. I forgot my glasses, but I don’t need them right now, and I’d rather not go back into that room where Jacob is sleeping. The moment he wakes up is the moment I come face-to-face with the choices I made last night.
I pad downstairs. The living room is empty, and Mason’s car is still gone. He must have had a good night as well, which is fortunate for me. I don’t know how loud Jacob and I were, but even if we were whispering, Mason might have heard us. Old houses tend to let a lot of sound through the cracks.
I go to the kitchen, searching not just for coffee, but also for solace. The routine of putting a filter, water and grounds in the coffee machine and setting a pan over the stove settles my nerves and lets me think a little clearer. It was just one night, just one time. I can set boundaries around this and save my job and my dignity.
I’ve coated several slices of thick challah bread in egg and slapped one into the pan when footsteps creak on the stairs. I brace, turning with a spatula in my hand in time to find Jacob sleepily shuffling into the kitchen.
I almost drop the utensil.
He isn’t wearing what he had on yesterday. His legs are mostly bare, only his briefs hiding him. Above, he dons a shirt that looks like it’s trying to swallow him — because it’smyshirt. It’s huge on him, hanging to his thighs, the sleeves of the T-shirt nearly hitting his elbows. He quirks a smile when he catches me staring, stepping more confidently and less sleepily onto the linoleum and up to the stove.
“Cooking for me again?” he says. “It smells good.”
I forgot all about the French toast when he appeared. I flip it before it burns, my hand numb around the spatula. I threw on sweatpants and a plain old T-shirt to come down here, then tossed an apron over it. Jacob hooks his fingers under the straps of the apron, running them downward and skimming them over my pecs as he does.
“This is so cute,” he says. “I’m starting to love waking up and finding you in an apron.”
“It’s for cooking,” I say, a weak attempt at an excuse.
“Uh-huh.” But he’s already sinking to his knees, eyes glittering as he gazes up at me from the floor.
“Jacob,” I say, a warning, a plea.
He runs his hands up under the apron, fingers crawling up my thighs. I didn’t put anything on under the sweatpants, and that’s about to become very, very obvious. He catches two fingers in the waistband, giving it the slightest of tugs, and my breath catches.
“We’re in the kitchen,” I say.
“We’re alone,” he counters.
We are. We are completely alone. No roommate. No bandmates. No press hungry for a compromising photo. In the entire world, there’s only us.
Jacob tugs, and my sweatpants fall in a puddle around my ankles. The apron covers me, but Jacob reaches under it and finds the damning evidence of my arousal. He smirks up at me as he grips it.
“Good morning indeed,” he says.
