Page 26 of The Marrying Kind
What could I say to get another shot? Was she even still interested? What if she was gearing up to tell me she was leaving tomorrow?
I never really knew how long she’d stay, but at some point, Noah was right. I was going to hear those words. I was going to have to watch her car crunch down the driveway and out of my life forever.
But it wasn’t going to be tonight, and for that, I was grateful.
When the bathroom door opened, I couldn’t help but look up into the loft and meet her eyes.
“Hey there,” she called out easily.
There was a towel wrapped around her head, but she had already dressed in a pair of jeans and a cream-colored sweater. It was a simple outfit, but it was sexier to me than if she’d been wearing a skimpy black dress and fuck-me pumps.
“If you’re finished, I think I’ll grab a shower too,” I said.
I definitely didn’t mind any part of knowing that beautiful creature was sleeping in my bed, but it did mean a few navigational challenges when I needed to invade the space and get clothes from my dresser.
“Of course,” she called down, bending forward so that the towel slipped off her head.
She shook her long hair and ran her fingers through the wet strands, and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor as I wandered upstairs. While Ella worked on brushing out her hair, I grabbed some clothes from my dresser.
Maybe it was evil, but I opted for the gray sweats I’d worn a few days ago, the ones that showed off my assets. She’d been taking me in by the eyeful the other night, and so it only seemed fitting.
It had been torture pulling back from her sweet kisses in the hot springs and keeping my distance the rest of the week. I should have earned some sort of award, like gentleman of the year. If I had, I was giving it back tonight.
When I closed the bathroom door, I heard her footsteps on the stairs. I hoped she’d hang out on the couch for a while, because I didn’t know how else to woo her if she felt like turning in early. But that didn’t mean I could rush this shower. Every inch of me needed to be squeaky clean and tempting. That meant tidying up my front lawn and using my cologne-scented body wash.
After I finished my grooming ritual, I willed myself to think about anything but Ella, because twenty minutes of anticipation meant I was fluffed in a way that would be painfully obvious in my sweats. I channeled the time when Tripp’s pony kicked me in the nuts. That did the trick.
With my pants slung low on my hips and my T-shirt in hand, I stepped out of the bathroom and made my way down the stairs.
11
BARING IT ALL
Ella
After his shower, Austen found me downstairs in the kitchen.
His gaze made an easy lap down my body before quickly returning to my face. Did he just check me out, or did I imagine it?
“Did you eat?” he asked.
I blinked and almost asked him to repeat the question before I snapped back to my senses. “I warmed up some soup.” I tipped my chin to the counter where a bowl was covered with foil. “I saved you some.”
“Thanks.”
Austen warmed the soup in the microwave while I jotted some notes for myself in my journal and tried not to notice how cute his butt was.
I failed miserably.
Austen ate the soup while I filled him in on my day, which included a little Christmas shopping downtown on Main Street. “And then I visited Velma’s and had a glass of Christmas sangria. It was really good, by the way.”
He made an approving sound. “Sounds like a productive day.”
“It was. CJ was there. She seemed awfully surprised to see me still in town—especially when I told her where I’ve been staying this entire time.”
Rinsing his bowl at the sink, Austen seemed to stiffen at my words. “I’ll bet she was.”
Before I could read into it further or ask him what he meant, he grabbed a bottle of red wine from the cabinet and held it toward me like a peace offering.
