“You would’ve thought she won the lottery with how much she was smiling at me. She sent me away with a lifetime supply of strawberry-flavored lube. The bag’s in my trunk.”
Ford barked out a laugh. “Better that than her not believing this. Let’s just hope she doesn’t figure things out as quickly as my siblings did.”
I snapped my gaze to his, careful to keep my wandering eyes above his shoulders. “What do you mean by that?”
He grimaced and ran a hand through his wet hair, causing another water droplet to fall, but I absolutely was not going to get distracted by that one. “They know what’s going on.”
“What do you mean?How?”
“Because they’re fucking Carmen Sandiego? I don’t know. Between the five of them, it took them like fifteen minutes.”
“Shit…” I breathed, closing my eyes and rubbing my temples. This was the last thing we needed if we had any hope of our coupling passing as reality. “Are they going to keep it quiet?”
“Oh yeah.” Ford nodded. “Addison’s all over it. She wants Dicknose out of there as much as you do, so she’s willing to do anything to help.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
Ford was still standing there in nothing but a towel, so I busied myself with the bags I hadn’t bothered unpacking last night. I’d never been more grateful for procrastinating because it gave me the perfect activity to avoid looking at him.
After grabbing one of the bags from my side of the bed, I strode over to the dresser, where Ford had cleared a couple drawers for me. I started tossing items in without much care to how they were arranged. I could fix it later. As long as it kept my attention off the nearly naked, extremely gorgeous man—who happened to bemy husband—I didn’t care.
I could hear Ford shuffling behind me, but I refused to even glance his way, though my body seemed to be acutely aware of his movements, regardless. Goose bumps had erupted on my skin just from the soft breeze of him walking behind me, and was I seriously getting turned on from someonewalking past me?
God, maybe Ford had been right, and three years actually was the breaking point. Hell of a time to figure that out…
I spun around, intent on grabbing the other bag, but instead landed face first into Ford’s warm, solid chest.
He steadied me with a hand on my hip, the other still clutching his towel in place. “Easy, kitten, I’m not gonna bite.”
But then his gaze raked over my upper body, sweeping down the column of my neck, across my nearly bare shoulders since I’d shed my cardigan, and down into the serious cleavage I was showcasing in this dress. When he lifted his eyes to mine again, they were molten, the unspokenunless you want me tohanging heavily in the air between us.
“Would you put on some clothes, please?” I snapped, sidestepping him to grab my last bag and storming back to the dresser before I did something I’d regret. Like tracing those water droplets with my tongue or tugging that towel right off his waist and telling him to put his money where his mouth was. Because that was the thing—Ford was an excellent flirt, but that didn’t mean he actually wanted to act on this when it came right down to it. Hell, I’d seen him flirt with Mabel more times than I could count, and I was fairly confident he didn’t want to bang her.
Too late, I realized what I’d stashed in this bag—the sex toy collection I didn’t want to discuss with Ford. It wasn’t a collection so much as a couple prized toys—one in particular that always,alwaysgot the job done—but still… It was not something I wanted to take out in his presence. Hoping Ford wasn’t looking, I grabbed one of them and shoved it into the drawer.
Or that was what I attempted to do anyway.
In actuality, I missed the drawer entirely in my clumsy attempt to keep Ford’s attention off me and threw my Rose toy on the floor, where it proceeded to roll across the wood planks before coming to a stop against Ford’s bare foot.
Oh my God.
Oh my fucking God.
My cheeks flamed, whether from the embarrassment of my toy being out in the open or the fact that Ford was still standing there looking like sex on a stick, I didn’t know. It didn’t matter.
I was prepared and waiting for Ford’s mocking voice to reach me, his teasing, taunting words to break this tension between us so we could get back to the status quo and fall into the antagonistic relationship we’d always had.
But I wasn’t prepared for him to reach down and pluck the toy from the floor, holding it between his fingers as he slowly stalked toward me, his eyes never leaving mine. “You should take better care of your toys, kitten. You can’t just throw them around.”
I leaned back, bracing my hands behind me on the dresser. My breaths were coming too fast, my breasts heaving with each one, and there was no way Ford didn’t notice. Not with my double D’s practically shoved in his face.
“Give it back,” I said, but my voice came out softer than I’d intended.
“What if I want to see how it works?” he asked. Then he glanced down, finding the on button and pushing it. Nothing happened.
Because I’d worn out the charge the night we’d gone out to dinner.
I’d come home, headed straight for the shower—living with two senior citizens really put a damper on solo fun—and made myself come in under two minutes to memories of Ford’s kiss. But one hadn’t been enough, and I’d worked myself through two more before I’d been sated enough to quit.
