Page 41 of Pick Six
“Hopefully…” I glance down at the floor for a second before I look up at her. “Saint—”
“I should shower and get to bed. Let you do the same so you can get up for practice tomorrow.”
There’s a polite smile plastered on her face, and I’ve been dismissed.
“Yeah. Okay… Goodnight.”
“Goodnight. And thank you.” She holds up the shirt as I leave. I nod.
No sooner do I get to my doorway, I hear her crank up the water, and that’s the end of any chance I had of changing her mind.
TWENTY-TWO
Harper
I situp abruptly in bed, my heart beating a mile a minute as I try to process the dream I just had. One in which his hands were all over me and I was panting his name. I’m a little concerned I might have been actually doing it because my mouth is so dry, I feel like it’s stuffed with cotton balls and I’m in desperate need of water—and sanity. I could not be having sex dreams about Alexander Xavier.
Sex dreams were going to lead to fantasies. Fantasies would lead to daydreams. And daydreams would lead to me opening my mouth at the wrong time and spilling the truth. It was one thing to kiss the man in a moment or two of weakness. It’s another to be actively fantasizing about him when he isn’t around. That was going to lead to me really wanting him. Which would leave me with nothing but problems.
I look around remembering that I was staying at his place. This was probably half the reason I couldn’t stop thinking about him even in my dreams. I should have just gone straight home.
I get up out of the bed making my way into the hallway and down to the kitchen. The lights are all off but the ambient lighting along the floorboards leaves it just light enough that I can see to make my way to the kitchen. Hopefully, I can stay quiet enough that he doesn’t hear me up and about because the last thing I think I can handle in my current state is seeing him. This whole trip to the kitchen is risky but not getting some water on my parched throat wouldn’t work either.
When I reach the kitchen, I open the fridge to pull out the pitcher and a glass as quietly as possible. I manage to pour them quietly, and I think I might be home free if I can walk back as silently as I came in. As I take my first sip though, I hear him stirring in his room. That’s when I realize I made a mistake. I should have just gotten a little sip of water out of the faucet in the bathroom and stayed in my room. I try to calculate if I can run back to the guest room in time, but if he opens the door as I do that, it’s going to be wildly awkward.
My fate is sealed a moment later when I hear his door opening and his feet padding down the hallway. I feel my stomach flip. A wash of nerves and anticipation goes through me. It has me questioning how bad my crush on this man is getting.
“You all right?” His voice is a deep rumble from behind me, and I nearly jump out of my skin despite the fact I knew he was coming.
I press my fingers to my lips and swallow to keep from choking.
“Steady there, Saint. It’s too late to be calling the EMT.” His eyes travel down over me, landing hard on my bare legs before they come back up to meet mine again. A small smirk flashes in the wake of his assessment.
Right. I’d forgotten what I wore to bed when I made my way out here. Nothing but panties and his oversized T-shirt. Super bright of me.
He leans in closer, so close I can feel the warmth of him at my back.
“And I don’t need them seeing my girlfriend looking like this either.” There’s an inflection to his voice, a lightheartedness that lets me know if I turned around, I’d see that playful boyish smile he has sometimes when he’s teasing. One which I definitely cannot look at right now, because I can’t handle it.
I take another sip of the water, the tartness of the lemon and the sweetness of the strawberries it’s been infused with swirl over my tongue. The same way his tongue had swirled over mine earlier and then in my dream when it had—damn. This isbad.He puts distance between us again though, as I hear him grab a glass out of the cabinet and set it on the quartz counter. The clang of the glass on the stone startling me from my daydream.
“You giving me the silent treatment, Saint?” I hear him ask as he pours his own glass of water.
I shake my head and take another sip to keep from talking. I don’t trust myself right now. I’m going to finish this glass of water and get back to the guest room. Close the door and remain unscathed by this little would-be close call. I could do this.
He downs the glass and then he’s back on me again, sliding into the space next to me and leaning against the counter so he can get a closer look at my face. He’s shirtless—because of course he is, I woke him up—and there is so much skin and tattoos, and just generally everything I want to touch because the dream felt way too real. Like he was actually touching me. Putting his mouth on me. Saying insanely dirty things to me while he took what he wanted.
“All right. Spill. You look like you saw a fucking ghost.”
Must have been the ghost of my dignity. The version of me that gave a flying fuck that this man was only ever interested in me as a one-night stand and is my ex-husband’s best friend.
“I just had a bad dream.”
“A nightmare?” His brows knit together, and he studies my face.
“Something like that.”
“What happened?”
