Callahan glanced away from mooning over his girlfriend where they sat at the breakfast table. “Morning, Finn. Got a stack of pancakes warming in the oven.”
“Thanks,” I mumbled as I pulled a mug from the cupboard and filled it with steaming coffee.
“You’re kind of quiet today, Finn,” Jamaica said.
“Losing that game took all the fun out of Christmas,” I said. After a fortifying slug of hot caffeine, I grumped at my roommate. “Doesn’t seem to be bothering you much.”
Jamaica rolled her eyes. “It’s a football game, Finn. Not the end of the world.”
Turning my head from side to side and rolling my shoulders, I shot back, “Sure feels like it.”
Callahan laughed. “Bax skipped breakfast to beat you to the shower.”
My eyebrows went up. “Is that right?”
Without another word, I snagged a plate from the cupboard and loaded it with five pancakes from the stack warming in the oven. I parked my ass at the table and proceeded to slather butter over the steaming stack before dousing it with half a bottle of maple syrup. Two minutes later, I was back at the oven for seconds, mounding my plate with another five pancakes.
Feeling her stare, I glanced up into Jamaica’s wide eyes. “What?” I asked around a bite of fluffy buttermilk deliciousness.
With a long blink, she shook her head. “Callahan spent more than a minute making those. Did you even taste them?”
Gifting her a closed-mouth grin, I winked and swallowed. “They’re to die for. Too bad Bax is going to miss out.”
’Han took a turn shaking his head. “You’re a piece of work, Finnegan.” He walked his and Jamaica’s plates over to the dishwasher. “You coming back by the house after you drop Bax at the airport?”
“Nah. I’ll head north after I drop him off. I think Danny’s sticking around to close up the house for Christmas.” I finished off my second plate of breakfast and was contemplating a third when Bax strolled into the kitchen.
Without a word, he headed to the oven to discover I’d left him three pancakes. Glaring, he said, “Really, Finn? Really? Why don’t you help yourself to all the food someone else cooked?”
“Hey, if you hadn’t hogged all the hot water, I wouldn’t have come downstairs to find breakfast in the oven.” I slugged back the dregs of my coffee then walked my plate and cup to the dishwasher. “Sucks to be you.”
Growling, “Fuck you!” Bax grabbed a dishtowel off the handle on the oven and snapped it at me. Forgetting how much my back still ached, I arched away from his weapon and covered my wince with a laugh as I raced out of the kitchen.
Once I was out of sight, I clamped my hand over my lower back and caught a breath before walking up the stairs. By now the water heater should have reloaded enough for me to enjoy at least ten minutes of heavenly heat. Right as I reached the landing, I caught Danny sliding into the bathroom and closing the door.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I veered across the hallway to my bedroom. A hot shower did not seem to be part of my immediate future.
Resignedly, I dragged my duffel bag onto my bed and started filling it with clothes I’d need for a few days back on the farm with the fam. By the time I’d finished packing, I heard Danny head back to his room. With a long-suffering sigh, I took my turn, lathering quickly in the lukewarm spray and praying the gremlins in the basement didn’t turn the water to ice-cold before I could rinse off.
The plus of not enjoying a hot shower was I that couldn’t succumb to X-rated thoughts of a certain blonde with endless blue eyes who kissed like an angel and moved like the devil.
Or not.
Jesus. Even with cold water sluicing down my back, my dick perked right up at the memory of Chessly’s sighs as I’d trailed kisses along her jaw and down the satiny column of her neck. I loved the beauty and symmetry of a perfect reaction, the fizz and pop or the changing of color or scent that denoted chemistry in action. What happened between that girl and me on the couch the other night had been pure chemistry. The way our bodies had heated, the pink flush on her skin, the way the taste of her mouth had morphed from chocolate-and-marshmallow to dark feminine deliciousness in the space of a kiss. Pure chemistry.
Lusty thoughts of gliding skin on skin with a certain smoke show of a physics major left me hard enough to drill concrete. Bracing one hand on the wall at the back of the shower, I wrapped my other hand around myself and—
“Fuuuck!”
Glacial water poured from the shower head, washing away my hard-on in an instant.
I might have emitted several more yelps as I swatted at the controls, missing a few times before I finally ended the water torture I should have anticipated.Wouldhave anticipated if a certain woman hadn’t distracted my thoughts for about the thousandth time since we met. When I stepped out of the shower, I heard Baxter’s laughter ringing outside the bathroom door.
“Sucks to be you, Finnegan.”
“Asshole.”
But I smiled to myself. Hard not to smile when I had Chessly on my mind. In the scheme of things, I’d won. While I might have endured a substandard shower, I’d enjoyed all the breakfast. Doubt Bax had left even a crumb for that other hot water hog, a.k.a. Danny.
