Page 88 of Pipe Dreams
“They don’t wait up,” he murmured against her skin. “Tomorrow’s a school day.” He cupped her jaw in one hand and raised her chin.
She waited, expecting to be kissed.
He only studied her instead, his dark eyes intense.
“What?” she breathed.
“I miss the hell out of you, that’s all. I miss you so much it hurts.”
When she threw her arms around him a second later, she knew she was in trouble. She was tired of playing it cool. “I miss you, too. But everything is just so complicated.”
He chuckled into her hair. “It’s like weinventedcomplicated.”
“I love you, Mike.” In for a penny...
“Love you, too, Lo. Never stopped.”
She believed him. But that didn’t make things any easier. “Come to bed.” She stepped back. “It’s late. It’s been a long day.”
“You’re telling me.” He took her hand and kissed it. “Lead the way.”
Threading her fingers into his, she led him through the darkened living room and into her bedroom. “The bathroom is right here,” she said, flipping on the light in there. “Make yourself comfortable.”
She gave him a little nudge and then left him, climbing into her four-poster bed. She’d bought her bedroom furniture with her first paycheck from Nate. It was white—a little girly, maybe. But she’d been trying to cheer herself up.
Many of those early nights she’d lain here, just wishing Mike Beacon was here in the apartment with her.
How weird that he actually was.
He emerged from her bathroom a couple of minutes later, shutting off the light behind him. In the glow of the ambient light shining through her windows—Manhattan was never dark—she watched him strip out of his suit, dropping the pants and shirt over the upholstered bench at the end of the bed.
“Nice apartment,” he said huskily. Off came his boxers.
“It’s dark. You can’t even see it,” she teased.
He shrugged. “You’re in it. That’s what makes it nice.” He walked around to the side of the bed and tugged the quilt aside. He slid into bed and rolled to face her. “Come here, sweetheart. Let me hold you.”
She went willingly. Greedily, even. She laid her head on his chest, lifting a hand to sift her fingers through the silky hair dusting his pecs and thickening over his abdomen into the happiest of happy trails. His chest hair was her secret fetish. She regarded it as evidence of his abundant supply of testosterone.
Lying there in silence, she was gripped by a powerful déja vu. So many nights they’d gotten into bed togetherafter a game, both of them tired, yet kept awake by the thoughts spinning through their respective brains. The comfort of skin on skin was what eventually put them to sleep.
“I had a terrible fight with Elsa last night,” he said eventually.
“Oh, I’m sorry! Was it about me?”
He didn’t answer right away. “It’s never really about you. It’s always about me.”
“I understand. But she didn’t like it that I showed up to have dinner with you.”
He sighed. “It’s just going to take her some time to accept her mother’s loss. She’s angry, and any little thing that changes makes her jumpy. But life is full of change. It doesn’t stop to let you get your bearings.”
“Did you make up with her yet?” she asked, picturing their hug in the corridor tonight.
“Sort of. We both apologized. But lately she’s like a grenade with the pin pulled, you know? I never know when she’s going to blow. I can’t tell which parts are grief, and which parts are just plain thirteen-year-old girl.”
“Is there someone she talks to?”
“Like a shrink? She had one for a year on Long Island. But then we moved. The doctor told me she’d be happy to find us someone in Brooklyn if I thought we still needed it.”
