Page 108 of A Dirty Business
I had to quit. Soon. Yes. Decision made. I’d have to quit working at the club, and I was beyond needing to do that. I’d been ridiculously stupid for not leaving, but then that would be it. No Trace. There’d be no reason after that.
I took him in, seeing his hair was mussed. Bags under his eyes, but he was here, and he was watching me back, and I just wanted him again.
One last night? Could I stop after tonight?
I didn’t have the willpower to walk from him, not yet. But I would. I had to, or I’d be ruined.
I gazed around, trying to remember what I’d been doing before he showed up. “Do you—uh, do you want something to drink?”
He came up behind me. I could feel his body heat. “Hey.” Always so gentle with me. “Look at me.”
I shook my head, pulling away. “I can’t. I do and I’ll lose it.”
“You want me to go?”
I should’ve. “No,” I whispered instead.
There. That was that. I guess I decided.
I didn’t say anything else, going down the hallway to my room. He followed me and stood in the doorway as I moved around my room. He watched me change out of my clothes and pull on a sleeping tank and my underwear. I didn’t sleep in anything else. I moved into the bathroom to wash up, and when I came back, he wasn’t in the doorway.
A light went off in my apartment. Another. And another. He was turning all the lights off. I heard him check the door, and then he was coming back. He saw me waiting for him and paused in the doorway, reaching out. The hallway light was turned off, and he came inside, a soft sigh leaving his mouth.
We didn’t speak.
I don’t know why. Maybe because there was nothing to be said. Or we’d said it all so much, but we were still not doing what we knew we needed to do, and what do you say about that? Nothing. The body was choosing, and I could not make myself kick him out. I was aching inside, my chest literally hurting from the thought.
He moved past me, his hand touching my hip, grazing over my back, as he went into the bathroom.
He closed the door, and I stood there, listening to him, liking the sound of him in my bathroom. Liking this feeling of waiting for him, knowing he wasn’t leaving tonight.
I slid into bed, under the covers, when he was coming out.
He stopped, gazing down at me.
I rolled to my back, just watching him in return.
His eyes narrowed before they closed, and he seemed to come to some decision.
He began undressing, putting his clothes on the chair by my bed. When he reached for his boxer briefs, he paused, taking me in again, and then leaving them before he reached to turn off the light on the nightstand. The covers lifted. The bed dipped, and he slid in beside me.
We moved to each other, his arms sliding around me and pulling me to him.
I ran a hand down his arm, his side, to his boxers, and I slid a finger underneath the waistband. “These are staying on?”
He skimmed a hand down my arm and to my waist, returning the favor. “When these come off, mine will follow.”
I lay back, seeing him rise up over me, resting on an arm beside me. Lights off, but I could still see him from the moonlight filtering through my curtains. It gave him a whole shadowed look.
One last night? I considered it, my body heating as I felt him all over again.
I couldn’t stop then.
“Just sleep.” He settled down beside me, one of his arms over my stomach, cupping my hip.
I whispered, “Okay.”
Slowly, muscle after muscle began relaxing. Settling down, and soon my eyelids were heavy too.
