I had to admit, he was becoming much more than a simple distraction. I just liked him.
He brought me food and made corny jokes. He asked questions and listened to what I had to say. Yeah, he sometimes lost his temper and argued with me, but even his anger felt safe somehow. I loved how he fought within the rules of engagement, sticking to the merits of the question, even changing his mind at times or simmering down, never trying to win at all costs.
I’d become addicted to the care he showed me, the way he made me want to trust in him.
Side benefit: he was helping me work through the list. Hell, he’d practically become the list, pushing challenges beyond mylimited imagination, somehow warping my need for new-and-exciting around his constant-and-safe presence. Was I using him to check things off, like Evan had accused Elizabeth? The opposite. The list gave me plausible deniability, an excuse to keep seeing Bas when I knew this was all just a practice. If I was using him for anything, it was for the way he made me feel. I couldn’t seem to get enough, and it should have scared the hell out of me.
I rolled over to face him. He’d fallen asleep on top of the covers as if to protect my virginity. I laughed softly at the ludicrous situation I found myself in, lying in this bed with a man I hadn’t even banged the night before who was treating me like some kind of treasure. I swallowed down a flurry of emotion I couldn’t process and considered how to rectify my first mistake. He slept in a white T-shirt and boxers, and he sported morning wood. I nudged the opening to his boxers, but he didn’t protest as I drew out his cock. I stroked him until he was completely hard, and he stirred with a sigh. I slipped out from the covers and crawled between his knees, hoping he’d let me give him this.
“Chelsea,” he whispered.
“Shh.” I bent forward and ran my tongue up the shaft, loving the low moan that elicited. I loved the way his cock felt, silky-soft skin over the rock-hard erection. His mouth fell slack as I dragged my thumb over the precum and under the head. I wanted to taste him.
He croaked my name once more, but I said, “I want this,” and he watched me as I wrapped my lips around him. I used my tongue to drive him insane, and his fingers clenched the sheets. He said my name again, but this time it sounded like begging.
He touched the top of my head and rasped, “Come here.”
“Condom.”
He fumbled in the side drawer and handed one to me. Thank God. I rolled it on, then climbed up him. I was still dressed in thesame clothes from yesterday, but I’d worn a skirt, so I slid my panties to the side, lowered myself onto him, and rode him, my hands clutching his T-shirt, his under my skirt, palming my ass. We’d never fucked fully dressed like this, with the sex completely out of view. I had nowhere to look but at his face, and it tripped something in me, like a chemical reaction. I could see it in his eyes, the way he looked at me.
It was too much, so I bent forward and caught his mouth with mine, and he kissed me like that first night, so desperate, so messy. He said words in Greek I didn’t understand, different than before, and I wondered dimly why he’d switched languages. What did he need to say he didn’t want me to hear?
My whole body shook as the orgasm built and crested, but I kept rocking, kept letting him thrust in me because I didn’t think I could bear to lose the connection.
It wasn’t long, though, until his breath sped up and froze for a heartbeat, like he did at the moment of his climax. I’d never known another person’s body like I knew his, but it was just sex. Really good sex.
I laid my head on his chest and fell back asleep like this. He must have gotten up to take care of the aftermath, but I didn’t know anything until morning, when I smelled coffee. As soon as I sat up, Bas settled a mug into my hands like magic.
“Did you sleep well?”
He treated me like a princess.
I twisted my head around to find him in the same white T-shirt and boxers. I took a sip of the coffee and sank into the pillow to appreciate the perfection of the brew. How did he do it? I made coffee for a partial living, but that all seemed like a rough, burned approximation of coffee. Bas had unlocked the secret of how to make it taste as good as it smelled. I moaned, and Bas shot me a glance.
My stomach growled, so I got up and followed Bas to thekitchen, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes with my knuckle. “What’s the deal with breakfast?”
He nodded at Evan, poised on a stool, forehead resting against an open palm, and said pointedly, “Houston, we have a problem.”
I nudged Evan. “Hey, Romeo. What do you have planned today?”
Evan lifted his head enough to glare at me. “This wasyourfault.”
Oh, no, he was not going to blame me for his problems. “Excuse me if I managed to help you meet a girl you are clearly wild about. If you want to blow that, I won’t sit here and let you keep me from breakfast.”
Bas leaned against the counter behind him, arms crossed, looking amused. Amused and hot.
Instead of berating Evan, I had another idea. It wasn’t nice, but it would be effective. I grabbed my cell phone and called Elizabeth. “You’ve got to work things out with Evan.”
“Good morning, Chelsea.”
I eyed Evan, but he only shook his head at me, as if I was going to hand him the phone.
I cringed a little at myself as I continued, but I was really hungry. “He’s sitting in Basil’s kitchen. He mentioned you wanted to go hiking.” Now Evan straightened, clearly interested despite himself.
Elizabeth’s voice jumped an octave. “I want to do what?”
“Go hiking. Today. Will you talk to him?” Evan jumped off his stool and retreated to the den, eyes glued to my phone the entire way, like it might bite.
