“I thought you destroyed your phone. The last time I called,” I say.

“Yeah, and it was awesome. Except I had to get a new one.” She rolls over and takes a look at it. “I have to grab this.”

She sits up, back against the headboard. “Hey,” she says. Her mussed-up hair grazes the tops of her pretty breasts. There’s a twinkle in her green eyes when she catches me staring.

“It’s all good,” she says to the unknown caller. “Lenny is handled, and his dogs are off. Yeah, I swear it!”

She smiles and sets a foot on my chest in the silence that follows. I grab it and kiss her toe.

She snorts at something the caller says. “No, Mr. Drummond gave me my bonus after all…I know, right? Oh yeah, and it was…” She gets this mischievous look, and I know she’s going to be sassy again. My cock rises to attention. “The bonus was…adequate.”

I go to the base of the bed, grab her ankles, and pull her down.

She giggles. “Yes, I have company. You’ve never met him. But you can come back,” she says to whoever’s on the other end. A roommate, maybe. Women like Lizzie have roommates.

I take this opportunity to glance around her room. White walls with cracking paint. Tall ceilings with the historic crown molding she once described. Bright scarves are draped over fixtures. Colorful prints adorn the walls—turtles and elves and a girl whose face is half wolf. An old tin sign that says Cooper’s Pizzeria. A framed album cover—some boy band, from the looks of it. A National Parks calendar.

“Well, the bolt is off, anyway,” she says.

It’s late. Is this somebody coming home?

I crawl over her and lean down, whisper in her other ear, “Lose the caller.”

She grins up at me. “Nothing,” she says. “That was nothing.”

I smile. Meet her defiant eyes.

She kills me.

I kiss her. I slide my palm up her stomach. She’s not a washboard-abs girl; she’s real. She eats cookies. Like a madman, I press my face into the sexy swell of her belly. I drag my lips up over it, squeezing her hips. She’s delicious.

Even her imperfections are delicious. Actually, her imperfections make her more delicious.

Still gripping her hips, I slide my face up her chest, aware that I’m giving her a little bit of sandpaper with the whiskers. From the way she wriggles, I can tell she likes it.

I make whisker contact with the underside of her breast. Her skin is literally like silk. I slide my cheek along the curves, enjoying her, taking my lazy time to get to her nipple. I’ve never done this, just enjoyed a woman without any goal, except maybe her pleasure.

When I come up for air, she’s watching me with unfocused eyes. “What?” she says to the caller. “Ahhhh, okay.”

I’m up over her on my knees, enjoying her eyes on my cock. I give myself a few yanks, just because I can, cock swelling above her sprawled, naked body. I locate another condom in my pants pockets. I rip open the silver packet with my teeth.

“Gotta go,” she gusts. “Okay, okay,” she adds.

I pull out the condom and toss the wrapper onto her naked chest. Her eyes flare.

I bite back a smile and slide the sheath over myself, nice and slow, letting her watch me handle myself, because she seems to like that. I give myself a few yanks. Her chest rises and falls.

But enough about me. I lean down and palm her thighs, rough and casual, like I own them. Her eyes twinkle. “Okay, later…” she mumbles into the phone, doing something that hopefully gets rid of the caller.

I shove her legs apart with a growl.

The phone slips from her fingers and hits the floor just before I enter her. “OmigodfuckYES.”

Twenty-Seven

Theo

The next thing I know,she’s whispering into my ear. “Wake up, motherfucker.”