He looked like he swallowed a bug. I got the feeling King Whatever-his-last-name-was didn’t like me at all. And the funny thing was, that stung. And it stung a lot.
He turned on his long legs and strode from my room, shutting the door behind him. I quickly toweled off and dressed for bed, and when I got under my covers, I didn’t find sleep came easily. In fact, it didn’t come at all.
Which brings me to now. Sometime after dawn this morning, I stumbled out of bed and found my way down to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Although, I wasn’t entirely sure that at this juncture coffee could do the trick. Nevertheless, I tried.
I pour a cup and make my way back upstairs, narrowly missing running into King.
Jesus. He moves like a cat. When I left my room, the door to the guest room was closed. Now, here he is, standing in the hallway and scowling at me.
“I’m sorry,” I stammer. “I didn’t see you.”
“Man my size,” he says, “hard to miss. I’m starting to doubt your self-preservation instincts.”
I look up at him, startled. Is he making a joke?
“Sure… uhh… yeah,” I ramble, trying to get my words to work. “I’ll get right on that.”
And I swear I just saw his lips twitch like he thought I was being funny!
“Yeah, babe,” he says. “Best get on that.”
“Uh-huh.” And then I turn on my heel and make my way back to my bedroom to get dressed for the day. The whole way down the hall, I don’t look back.
I chug back a big gulp of coffee before placing my mug on the bathroom counter. I race into my closet, stripping off my pajamas as I go. I pull on panties and a sports bra, yank a pair of spandex shorts up my legs, and then pull a lavender ribbed tank top down over my head, making my way back into the bathroom. I grab a brush and yank it through my hair then drop it to the countertop and scoop up a hair tie, gripping it between my teeth. I plait my hair down my back in a french braid. It’s too hot to let it be down on the track, and it gets in the way, but a ponytail doesn’t fit under my helmet, so this is my style of choice.
I brush my teeth, scrub my face, and slather on some moisturizer before running back to my closet to grab a pair of Chucks and slide my feet in. All of my gear and my suit are stored at the track.
I grab my mug and dump the last few sips of now cold coffee down the drain. I run the water in the sink to rinse it down, and then with the stoneware in my hand, I race back down the stairs. When I get to the mouth of the kitchen, I stop dead in my tracks, because something about the view in front of me is wrong. King is in a pair of worn jeans, boots, and a black T-shirt that is so tight across his broad shoulders it should be illegal. He’s leaning against the island, scrolling through a phone, and by the leopard-print case, one can only guess it isn’t his phone.
I know exactly whose phone it is, because it’s mine.
He notices movement at the doorway and looks up. “What the fuck are you wearing?”
“Is that my phone?” I ask.
“I asked you a question,” he says, his deep voice rumbling.
“I could say the same,” I snap as I come unglued from where I was standing. I make my way over to the dishwasher, where I put my mug in the top rack and turn around. His face is carefully blank, but his eyes are…heated. It sends a shiver down my spine and a tingle to an unwanted place.
“Go fucking change,” he orders.
“Excuse me?”
“I am not leaving this house until you put on something else.”
“Fine,” I reply, feeling embarrassment heat my face. “Then don’t leave. I’m not even sure that I need you.”
“Oh, you need me,” he responds, his voice low… quiet… ominous. “Now go change.”
“No,” I say, digging in my heels for the fight. “I wear this every day so I can have something under my fire suit. I’m not changing just because you don’t like it.”
“Well I’m not having my men walk around with hard dicks in their pants because you want to get in touch with your feminist side and parade around in front of them dressed like a stripper.”
“That was notably sexist,” I reply quietly, and what I do not voice is the fact that he’s hurt my feelings. There’s a fine line in this business between being labeled a capable woman who is sexy as hell and one that does things she shouldn’t have to in order to move up the ladder.
“Babe.”
“What?”
