“Don’t waste the money. Give me one second, I’ll be right back,” I tell her, then turn and disappear around to my door. Inside, the girls are just finishing brushing their teeth. I shove the bag of garbage into the trashcan and wash my hands at the kitchen sink. “You girls can have half an hour of tablet time, and then it’s bedtime. Got it?” They all nod, racing for their devices. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to take this food over to Lou.”
I take the tinfoil covered plate and a small container with fixings for a salad, along with another that houses a slice of the pie from the counter where I’d left it earlier and walk back over to Louise. She’s still standing just inside her front door, feet bare. The smudge of mascara under her eye is gone now, like she swiped it away with her fingers while I was gone, and the tangle of her wet hair is a little less wild, like she’d run her fingers through it to tame it.
“We had dinner at my mom’s tonight, and she always sends extras for lunch. Here,” I say, holding the plate and containers out to her. “It’s grilled chicken, roasted veggies, and a mixed salad. Oh, and homemade apple pie that the girls helped make. It’s not the prettiest, but it tastes damn good.”
She reaches for the food, her blonde brows dipping low over her eyes. “I can’t take your lunch,” she protests, but her hands close around the bottom edge of the plate, our fingers grazing. Fuck, the heat that spreads through me at that little point of contact is searing. This close, with no make up on, I can practically count the freckles that bridge her nose and the apples of her cheeks. Her lashes are long and soft, fanning out around the prettiest green eyes I’ve ever seen.
“My girls conned you out of your own birthday cake, I think you can take this,” I laugh, my voice coming out far huskier than intended, and I nod down at the food between us.
“This is really sweet,” she says softly, her lower lip wobbling just a little. “Today was… a really bad day, but this… this is definitely making up for it. Thank you, Zach.”
Goddamn I love hearing her say my name. I really want to hear her say it in other situations, too. Other situations that are wholly inappropriate to be thinking about.
“Please come inside,” she says, backing into the entryway. I glance over my shoulder and hesitate. “If you have to get back to the girls, I understand. I’m sorry, just never mind me—”
No, my hesitation is entirely because of how incredibly accessible she looks right now. Rumpled and soft and so damn cute. Her cheeks are flushed and rosy, my guess is from the tequila she’s consumed already tonight.
Which, if I’m honest and in any way still a gentleman, should be the first reason not to follow her inside.
She disarms me in a way that I don’t like.
Fuck it. I’ve been the king of bad decisions lately where she’s concerned. What’s one more? “You know what, they’re zoned in for a little screen time, I can spare a few minutes.”
In response, she beams a smile up at me, andthatdisarms me, too.
Like the masochist I am, I follow her inside and shut the door behind me, and then we’re alone in her tiny kitchen. She sets the plate and containers down on the counter, unwrapping the foil covered plate. She pops the plate in the microwave over the stove and turns it on, the machine whirring to life.
“Would you like to do a shot with me? I don’t know where my shot glasses are packed, unfortunately, so it’s straight outta the bottle,” she laughs, shrugging lightly as she picks up the bottle of tequila sitting on the counter.
The motion makes her unrestrained breasts sway slightly under her shirt and I struggle to remember how to fucking breathe for an extended heartbeat.
I think she’s forgotten about being braless beneath that t-shirt, which is both a blessing and a curse. Her breasts aren’t large, but fuck me, the way that her nipples tent the fabric let me know just how fucking perky they are. I’m a whole asshole for how badly I want to see them, to put my mouth on them.
Play with them with my fingers and see how responsive they are.
She’s twenty-four, asshole, I remind myself. Way too fucking young to be messed up with the likes of me. Fuck, this sucks.I haven’t felt desire like this inyears. I want her, so fucking badly. And I can’t have her, not even a little bit. For way too many reasons. Several of those reasons being the three blondes waiting for me in my apartment. But God, just one taste of that mouth, and I’d be content, I swear—
The microwave dings, but she doesn’t move back toward it.
Louise holds the bottle out to me in offering, fingers wrapped around the neck, and the way her fingers curl around it elicits even worse thoughts. Thoughts of what those fingers might look like wrapped around something else—
Clearing my throat, I don’t trust myself to speak, so I just shake my head. God, I can only pray she doesn’t look down right now, because I’m hard and straining behind the fly of my jeans.
She shrugs her shoulders again, tipping the bottle of tequila up to her lips and taking a swallow.
Her eyes never leave mine though, and when she lowers the bottle from that mouth, I find myself reaching for it.
Again…fuck it.
Because if I can’t put my mouth on hers to taste her from the source, I’m going to taste her on the rim of this bottle, instead.
Eleven
Louise
Zach takes the bottle out of my hand, his large, rough fingers curling over mine before I let go. Admittedly, I am more than a little buzzed, the tequila heating my throat and my cheeks.
Or maybe it’s the heat in this man’s eyes that’s making me warm.
