One eye barely squints open. “The kind with caffeine.”
“Black? Cream? Sugar? I’d ask dark or light roast and Peruvian or Colombian beans, but I don’t know if I can be that picky here.”
“You definitely cannot be that picky here.”
I high-five myself. “Look at me figuring things out.”
She sighs. “Look, Oliver, if you’re in a good mood because we had sex?—”
“Sex puts me in a terrible mood. I hate it. It’s so…sexy.”
Now I’m getting a double-eyed blink. “What the actual hell is wrong with you today?”
“You’ve inspired me to be obnoxious, and it turns out, it’s fun.”
She pushes to sitting and groans softly.
I swing around to her side of the bed and climb onto the floor next to her, then press my thumb into the spot she keeps grabbing on her neck. “Sleep on it wrong again?”
“It’ll be fine.”
“You can go back to bed if you want more rest.”
“Mm.” She sways into me as I stroke the muscle harder.
“Suppose I’ll miss my normal massage therapist,” I murmur.
“That part was the worst,” she mumbles.
“Was it?”
Her shoulders droop the barest amount. “No. It wasn’t. Losing my phone was the worst. The absolute worst of the worst. I had to get a new number and most of my old friends wouldn’ttake my calls anymore, even when I left them voicemails telling them it was me.”
“Shitty friends.”
She sighs and mumbles something under her breath that I can’t understand.
“What was that?”
“I saidthank you, that feels good.”
“Had chronic neck pain the first year I took over for my father.”
“Lucky if that’s all you had.”
“Wasn’t, but antacids and extra-strength painkillers handled the worst of the headaches and stomach problems.”
“Do they know they were lucky to have you?”
I pause in rubbing her neck.
She whimpers.
It’s a soft, pathetic little noise ofplease don’t stop touching methat speaks directly to that muscle hiding behind my sternum.
“No idea,” I tell her.
I dig deeper into that muscle between her shoulder and neck, and she makes another noise, this one an unholy groan that has my cock pulsing harder again.
