Page 70 of Veiled in Brick

I stretched my arms overhead, and they were deliciously sore. “Are you?”

“Uh huh.” A beaming, freckle-stretching smile broke across his face.

I laughed softly at his expression. “You got any more of that coffee?”

He pointed to the kitchen island, and I sat up to allow my eyes to follow his finger, finding his French Press nearly full. My instinct was to bounce up and grab myself a cup but considering that my clothing had been removed during the night, I was starkly naked underneath the blanket that I kept wrapped up to my neck. I searched for my pajamas around me, yet they were nowhere to be found.

“Looking for something?” he asked, his eyebrows bouncing up and down suggestively.

I sighed, though I wasn’t truly frustrated in the least. “Where are my clothes?”

“In a safe space, away from you.” He joked, “They kept getting ripped off so…y’know.”

My brows raised. “Are you looking to get an eye-full?”

He was a dog panting at the sight of a treat held just out of reach, nodding so hard that I wondered if his brain rattled in his skull. “Oh yeah.”

I mocked him with, “Perv,” and his grin broadened as I threw the blanket aside and strutted to the kitchen boldly to prepare my coffee.

He exhaled, letting out a content, “Ah,” as his eyes traced the lines of my body from my head to my feet. I reached on my toes to grab a mug from the cabinet to the right of his stove, and when I walked back around the island to reach the contraption that contained the dark liquid I so desperately needed, I saw that his gaze remained on my ass as I moved. I cleared my throat loudly, and he glanced at me salaciously as I filled my mug.

He told me, “I put your creamer in the fridge.”

I set the French Press down, walking briskly to the fridge in disbelief and chuckling when I opened it and saw the orange container sitting pretty in the side door. I looked back to Liam, holding the bottle up, and noted that his dark eyes had now moved to my breasts.

“My eyes are up here,” I admonished him, pointing two fingers to my face.

“Are they?”

I snorted, shaking the container in my hand and hearing the liquid slosh within—it was full. “When did you get this?”

“A long time ago.” He stated with a shrug, “We always have coffee at your place; never opened it.” I nodded as I unscrewed the cap, and he noted, “Check the expiration date.”

I did so, found a date printed for mid-August, and was thankful that I still had a few weeks to spare. I poured a generous amount of creamer into my mug and walked to sit across the table from Liam, my bare cheeks pressed against the wood of the chair. I casually crossed my right leg over my left and took a sip.

“You aren’t going to ask where your clothes are?” he questioned with a lopsided smile.

“I am cold,” I quipped.

He glimpsed at my hardened nipples, allowed me to take one more tentative taste from my cup, and stood. Liam began to waltz into his bedroom at a tortoise’s pace, snickering to himself all the way.

It felt so very domestic, our casual interactions, and I pondered the reality of why this wasn’t bothering me. I supposed it could have been because Liam and I had already developed a rapport that let us be happy with each other’s existence, regardless of the circumstances. It could have been because I had slept over at his apartment many a time before, and this time was only different in the fact that I was currently naked and that we had explored each other’s bodies a multitude of times during our supposed sleeping hours. Or, it could have been that I actually wanted it. This. A relationship. Not only that, but one with a blend of our friendship that we’d built together and an intimacy that only appeared to be growing. The feeling called to me on a level so deep that I awoke in the night to seek him out—not just the pleasure, but his mere presence. His touch. His embrace that felt caring.

The thought struck me dumb, and I frowned into my mug as I took another sip.

I wasn’t forced to linger on the thought for long, though, because the front door began to unlock itself from the outside, the knob twisting until the door creaked open.

I jumped. Warm coffee spilled on my tits. I cursed as I set my mug on the table, working to cover my most treasured bits, and a woman appeared in the doorway.

I rewound the incident in my brain as if my mind were an old VHS. I metaphorically paused the tape at the moment that my posture froze, and I stopped trying to cover my nether regions because there was a woman in Liam’s doorway. A woman who had a key. A pretty woman, at that. A woman with doe-like brown eyes and a light dusting of freckles on her cheeks. A young woman. A woman with pin-straight, chocolate-brown tresses that trailed down to her waist. A woman whose midriff was exposed, a tiny belly ring catching my eye as it peeked out between her high-waisted pants and short white tank.

If I weren’t so flabbergasted by how beautiful she was, I would have reacted more appropriately. Perhaps by saying, ‘Who the fuck are you, and why do you have a key to Liam’s apartment?’ Or, maybe, ‘Get the fuck out,’ because surely Liam wouldn’t have given the key to his apartment to a woman aside from me…right?

“Oh, fuck,” Liam’s voice erupted from his bedroom, and he raced to thrust my pajamas into my arms. “Fuck-shit-fuck-sorry—”

“Liam,” the gorgeous woman’s voice was husky, speaking to him in a chastising manner as she flicked a hand toward me, “is this why you haven’t been calling me back?”

I shook my head rapidly, her voice snapping me back to reality, and I set my mug on the kitchen table with purpose.

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