I’d been toying idly with the thought that it’d be nice to ink him, but I wasn’t sure now that I could’ve concentrated all that well.
“You’re naked,” I said, the most sparkling conversation I was up to right now.
Carter laughed, extracting underwear and socks from his bag. “I know. That’s why I’m getting clothes.”
“You could stay naked,” I offered, hopeful, imagining Carter coming to lounge on the bed beside me so I could look at him, maybe reach out and trace some of those perfect lines with the tips of my fingers, feel the muscles shifting under my touch, hunt for sensitive spots no one else had ever found.
“Tempting as that offer is,” Carter began, picking out a shirt, impossibly soft-looking midnight blue sweater, and sensible charcoal pants. “I don’t think they’ll let me into the restaurant if I’m not wearing pants.”
“I feel like the sign usually mentions shoes and shirt. Nothing about pants.”
Carter smiled, smoothing the sweater out with nervous fingers. “I think the pants are implied,” he said. “But you’d know more about the limits of the rules than I would.”
“I know if I see one of those signs I’ll hate being in whatever place has it up.” I shrugged.
“So that’s a no on taking you somewhere nice sometime?”
“Might have to rethink whatnicemeans,” I said. “But it’s not a no. I’d dress up for you.”
I alreadyhaddressed up for him, and he knew it. Hemusthave known it.
If I could be any more obvious, I wasn’t sure how.
I watched him dress, mouth going dry at the unspeakably erotic sight of him pulling on a pair of business socks. I had no idea whythat, in particular, did it for me, but it might’ve had something to do with Carter’s miles and miles of legs.
Or I some kind of weird, unexplored kink I had for socks.
“You gonna be okay for dinner?” he asked as he threw his shirt over his shoulders, nimble fingers buttoning it up at a speed I could only have dreamt of.
He’d had a lot more practice than me, I supposed.
“Or should I bring something back for you?”
“Umm.”
I was so busy staring at the soft, touchable sweater in his hands and imagining running my fingers over it while it was on him that trying to focus on anything else was a struggle.
“I’ll be fine,” I said eventually as my brain finally deciphered what he’d been saying, instead of rolling around like a happy puppy in thesoundof his voice. “Worst case scenario, we’re not so far from civilization that no one delivers.”
This wasnice. It felt so normal to sit on the end of the bed and watch Carter dress, relaxed and unhurried, like this was any normal afternoon and he was about to go… out for business drinks, or whatever it was he did of an evening when he wasn’t snuggling on the couch with me.
Temporary, my brain reminded me. We weren’t doing the long-term thing. Weobviouslyweren’t doing the long-term thing.
Carter would learn the ropes with me and then go find someone who wore button-down shirts every day and understood what an annual report was for.
Which was fine. Different worlds. We would’ve driven each other nuts after a while anyway.
I stood as he shrugged his coat on, gathering phone and wallet and patting himself down as though he might’ve forgotten something.
Why was I standing?
I wanted a kiss goodbye. Iexpecteda kiss goodbye, even if thiswasonly a temporary experiment, a springboard for Carter to go find the man of his dreams—or the woman. His problem wasn’t that he didn’tlikewomen, his problem was that he didn’t get to pick them for himself.
After this, who knew? All I wanted was for him to be happy.
Carter paused in front of me, fingers running through his still-damp hair, eyes warm and soft.
Oh fuck.
