Page 49 of Act Like You Don't Care
I watched him for a moment, just a little worried, then joined him in clearing the table.
He turned on the tap as soon as the sink was full and started looking for the soap.
“Why don’t you go rest?” I asked him gently. “It’s been a long day.”
“I’m fine,” he said stubbornly and kept looking for the soap.
I fished it out of the pantry and passed it over to him. He smiled at me and gave the sink a squirt. I leaned against the countertop and crossed my arms casually over my chest. “I can do those.”
“I don’t mind.” He smiled at me again and began wiping down the plates.
Something was off here. I watched him more attentively, noted the care he was taking to do everything perfectly, how he’d laid out a dishtowel to catch all the water that would drain off the dishes. How careful he was not to let them clack against each other inside the sink. “You’re trying out the house omega thing, aren’t you?”
He didn’t stop what he was doing, but he did look up at me. “Am I that bad at it?”
“You’re fine.” I slipped the sponge he was using out of his hands. “Go sit down. I can do this.”
“Shit.” He rested his hands on the edge of the sink and stared at the curtains, then practically threw himself away from the kitchen counter and stormed angrily out into the living room.
“Damn it all,” I muttered, and tossed the sponge in the sink. I followed him out into the living room and found him sitting on the couch with his forearms braced on his knees, just stewing.
He didn’t quite ignore me, but whatever was going on inside his head was more important than me.
I sat down beside him. “You know, I’m not just a psycho wrangler.”
He snorted something that wasn’t quite a laugh and shook his head. “I probably do need therapy, now that you mention it.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Yeah.” He patted my knee and started to get up, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“It wasn’t,” I insisted. “But you’ve got all these people around you and it doesn’t seem like there’s a single one of them you trust your entire self to. You don’t have to protect me from you, and you don’t have to protect yourself from me. If you want to talk, I can listen.” This was dangerous territory I was treading on, but over the past couple of weeks, I’d come to reallylikeTam. As a person. Hell, even as an omega. And I was this close to just tossing all my parents’ advice about avoiding dating in Hollywood and asking him out. Not everyone in Hollywood was like Jim’s wife.
Tam gazed at me thoughtfully, then shook his head. “You know, I don’t think I want to talk. What I do want to do, is this.” He leaned over and kissed me, seductive and with just enough aggression to get my hormones racing. I put my hands up to, maybe, push him away and found them instead gliding beneath the hem of his scrubs to stroke his spine, remembering what it had done to him the night before.
He sighed and leaned in more heavily, forcing me back until I was lying on the couch with him on top of me. I was hard, and he was hard, and my good intentions were paving the smoothest road to hell I’d ever raced down in my life. The harshness of his breath was a counterpoint to my own and I grabbed his hips and ground myself against him in response.
Tam made a needy sound, deep in his throat, and straddled my legs, hips rocking as he frotted himself against me.
I had only just started to slide one hand under the elastic waistband of the scrub pants when I heard the door open and Jim call out, “Miles? You need to answer the phone, little bro.”
Tam slithered back off my body and crammed himself into the far end of the couch so fast there should have been a sonic boom. I took a moment to adjust myself and be grateful for the fact that neither of us had thought to turn on the lights in the living room before I answered, “In here.” The light from the kitchen dipped and shivered and when I craned my neck to peer over the arm of the couch, I saw Jim standing in the opening. “Shit, I never thought about food for you,” I said, chagrined.
“It’s good. The cabin is stocked.” Jim strolled into the room and perched on the arm of the couch, right beside my head. “Dark in here.”
Fuck off, Jim.
Tam beat me to it. In the blandest tone I’d heard out of him yet, he said, “We were talking. About my family.” He lifted his chin and glared at Jim. “About the Vinists.”
“Oh. Okay.” For the first time in perhaps forever, Jim looked disconcerted. “Uh, I just wanted to let you know we took a spin around the property and I replaced the camera at the foot of the drive with that one I found at the trade show in Austin.”
At the moment, he could have replaced it with Play-Doh for all I cared. “I’m probably going to lock the place up, then, if you guys don’t need anything in the house. So speak now or forever hold your peace.” I pushed myself up from the couch, carefully keeping my back to him. He hadn’t apparently noticed what my brain insisted was a glaring bulge in my jeans, but no point in tempting fate.
Jim stood up and, thankfully, turned back toward the kitchen. “We’re fine. You show him the panic button yet?”
“Gonna be part of the tour,” I promised as I followed him. I avoided Tam’s gaze, just in case. Would he be relieved that we’d been stopped? Was I relieved? I didn’t feel relieved, but maybe it was for the best.
I locked the door behind Jim and pulled the curtains closed, then started checking windows and closing curtains.
