Page 26 of Strip Bare

I nodded. "Yeah, he's keeping my parents entertained while I tutored a guy from class."

"Ah, cool. How long are they down for?"

"Barring any more car trouble, they should be leaving tomorrow."

Ryan's dark brows drew together as he watched me before his expression cleared. "Car trouble, huh. Well, I’ll see you on Tuesday then?"

I nodded and he smiled before walking away. Something about the way he'd looked at me seemed... off. I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but it was like he'd had a realization of some kind. About what, I had no idea.

I made it home without seeing anybody else and I was grateful for that fact. My small-talk battery had been almost completely drained. I needed somewhere quiet to recharge.

I could hear my mom talking in the kitchen and decided to wait a bit before going in so I didn’t have to see whoever else was in there chatting with her. Instead, I nudged open Kit's door and flopped into his bed after nudging off my shoes. It still smelled like him and my body relaxed as I pushed my hands through my hair, massaging my scalp. It was nice that my family had come to visit, but I wasn't built for so much socialization day after day. Plus with dinner tonight… I needed to take a moment for myself, to just close my eyes and sit there quietly. The next thing I knew, I was being nudged awake by gentle hands.

“Hey,” Kit said softly and I blinked, confused about where I was and why he was waking me up. “You should probably get up now if we want to make the dinner with your parents.”

Dinner. Shit. Had I really slept that long? “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sleep for so long—”

“It’s okay, I get it. But I thought you might want to wake yourself up a bit before we leave.” Kit stood, pulling away from the edge of the bed where he’d been crouched. “How was tutoring with Harley?”

“Good,” I said and then considered, thinking back to everything he’d said. “And weird.”

“How so?”

I shrugged. “Just some of the things he says.”

“Like what?”

Was it just me, or were Kit’s words more clipped than usual? “He asked about us.”

Kit stilled, his back to me as he considered the contents of his cupboard and then tugged his tee up and over his head, the corded muscles in his back flexing with the movement. “Oh? And what did you tell him?”

I swallowed hard as I followed the line of his spine down to the beginnings of his jeans. “That it’s complicated.”

I got the feeling that I’d said the wrong thing almost immediately.

“Right.”

“Kit—” I tried and he spun around, buttoning his short-sleeved gray shirt up and over his abs.

“We have to leave soon or we’ll be late,” he said curtly and stalked out of the door, leaving me sitting up in his bed, open-mouthed.

It didn’t seem to matter what I said when it came to Harley, just saying his name was enough to piss Kit off.

I quickly freshened up and threw on a clean shirt—one my mom had got me in a deep forest green. I didn’t wear it often because it tended to cling to my shoulders and was a little too tight in the neck, so I had to wear the first few buttons open.

Kit turned to face me as I jogged down the stairs, mouth opening like he was going to say something and then shutting when his eyes dropped to my shirt. He cleared his throat and I let him stew, reluctant to be the first to break the silence considering he had been the one to storm away. Anyone would think he was my real boyfriend. I wanted to laugh at the thought, but it mostly just depressed me—it seemed like all kinds of desperate to want your fake boyfriend to be fake jealous.

“You missed a few buttons,” he said eventually and stepped in close to me as I finished tying my laces. I opened my mouth to respond, to tell him it was deliberate, but no sound came out as his warm hands brushed the skin of my throat and his fingertips ghosted across my chest.

I caught his hands in mine and his eyes flew up, his breaths coming faster and feathering across my mouth in a way that was dizzying. I tugged the buttons open again and his eyes slid closed. “It’s too tight if I do them all up.”

“Right.” Kit’s voice sounded strange, almost hoarse, and his eyes were still screwed shut as the muscle in his jaw popped.

“Are you okay?” I instinctively caught his chin in my palm as I dropped his hands, tugging his head towards me so I could look at him more closely. “Do you need some water or something?” Eyelids lifted and deep blue eyes filled with heat froze me in place before I dropped my hand from him like I’d been burned. “Maybe we should just get going,” I said hastily and a small smile passed over his face.

Kit gestured towards the door and I carefully stepped around him, aware of every inch of space between us and how quickly it could be breached.

“Giorgio’s?” I guessed when we turned towards the mall rather than the direction of Cocoa & Rum and Kit nodded. It was probably the nicest place to eat that we had in Sun City, if you wanted to eat something other than a burger or salad. “Thanks for doing this,” I said quietly as we walked and Kit raised a dark eyebrow in my direction. “The extra day of the boyfriend package,” I explained, trying to smile and failing. He said nothing and it unnerved me. Kit was never usually lost for words—if anything, he was the one who felt compelled to fill the silence.

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