You have to have known how I felt about you.
God, I was stupid not to realize my own feelings until it was too late. Now, all of that pent-up yearning from our teenage years combined with Max making it pretty damn hard not to like him—and yeah, that I could use a good lay—has me thinking unprofessional, unroommate-like thoughts about him.
Roommate, I remind myself, and a temporary one at that. I ignore how my heart twists and instead slide into the steamy tub with a sigh, relishing how the water envelops me and the delicate bubbles suction to my skin.
When I lean my head back to give in to relaxation, a trilling alarm in the other room reminds me why I’m more of a quick-shower type of gal.
“Damn it,” I mutter.
“I’ve got it.”
“It’s a daily reminder.” I stand and reach for a towel, suds careening down my body as the tub water sloshes side to side from me standing so quickly. “For Freddie’s meds.”
“Daisy Johnson, sit your ass down and have a bubble bath for once in your life. I’ll handle it.”
The sternness in Max’s voice sends a delicious vibration down my spine. I don’t enjoy relaxing, and I definitely don’t like being told what to do—but that bossy tone has me melting back into the tub, timid and obedient.
“He’s squirrelly,” I say. “And he prefers when you pop it into the left side of his mouth, not the right. And you’ll need an oral syringe to wash it down with water so that—”
There’s a soft knock on the bathroom door. “May we come in?”
“Um. Sure.”
Max enters, and I can’t stop adjusting the shower curtain and strategically arranging bubbles over my body.
“So.” Max inspects some pill bottles as Freddie purrs in his arms. “One of these pink ones and half a white?”
I tilt my head. “How do you know that?”
“Been paying attention.”
“To a cat’s medicine schedule?”
Freddie mews, sending the corner of Max’s mouth skyward, and my heartbeat trips.
Friend. Roommate. Business partner.
Max sinks next to the tub on the floor, close enough that I can feel his breath on the damp skin of my arm. I forget why he’s in the bathroom in the first place, and I surrender to the possibility that he’ll lean over, invade my space, and lick the lavender offof me. When he scoots closer, locked in intense eye contact with me, I’m certain that’s what is about to happen, and it feels like falling.
“You’ve offended him,” Max whispers with that gorgeous, boyish grin on his face. “Freddie’s not justacat. He isthecat of the house.” Max scratches underneath the purring feline’s chin, and I am officially experiencing jealousy toward my own cat. Freddie even looks at me with a smug,Bet you’d like this right here, wouldn’t you?expression.
“These heart meds are a big deal, right Fred?” Max says to him. “Okay, left side. C’mere.” In one deft movement, Max pops both pills into the cat’s mouth. Freddie, oblivious, turns and rubs his face into Max’s knee, purring like a generator with four legs. Max pets Freddie’s head and scratches around his neck like it’s his calling, and I swear, my uterus explodes. If there is one undeniably sexy thing a man can do, it’s care for a poor, helpless animal.
“What?” Max shoots me a quizzical look, and I close my gaping mouth.
“Nothing,” I say, my throat like sandpaper. “Freddie puts up a much bigger fight when I do meds.”
“What can I say? Magic touch.”
He rinses his hands in the sink, and they’re good-looking hands. Elegant, confident. He has long fingers and a few prominent veins traveling from the knuckles. I shudder with a chill and plunge deeper into the warmth of the bath.
“You doing okay in here?” Max’s gaze glides across the edge of the tub, and I’m hyperaware that I’m naked and shielded by a flimsy piece of plastic and suds. I wonder if he’s hyperaware of that, too.
My response is incoherent, I’m sure, but I nod, so Max takes that as his cue to go, carrying Freddie with him. I can’t relax,but not due to my usual workaholic tendencies. A tremor courses through my veins, and a pit of something forms low in my belly.
Not something.Desire.
All he did was give my cat medicine, but seeing the tenderness with which he treated Freddie—and the way he knocked a task off my to-do list like it was no big deal—has me wondering what else that magic touch can do.
