She didn’t know what to say to that.
Apparently, he didn’t need her to. “Good night, Julia.”
She watched him walk away. Under the same roof, the distance between them seemed wider than ever.
In the bedroom, she closed the door and sagged against it. For a moment, she stood there, eyes closed, trying to steady the nervous energy that hummed beneath her skin. It didn’t work.
The room smelled of him. Clean. Masculine. It affected her more than she wanted to admit.
She pushed away from the door and crossed to the bathroom. He’d left the light on for her. A new toothbrush, still in its package, rested beside folded towels on the counter. A fresh bar of soap waited beside the sink. It was a thoughtful thing to do.
Julia picked up the soap and brought it to her nose, immediately wishing she hadn’t. The scent triggered memories of her face buried in his neck and his hands sliding over her skin.
She set it down and shut her eyes hard, forcing the memories down. Then she washed up and changed into his shirt, trying to reclaim some sense of normalcy from the wreckage of the evening.
When she finally climbed into bed, exhaustion sat heavy in every part of her body. Curling onto her side, she pulled the pillow close. But sleep wouldn’t come.
Leland was everywhere. In the soap clinging to her skin, the taste of his cinnamon toothpaste, and especially in the bed beneath her.
She flung the pillow away and lay still, trying not to stir up more of him. It hurt because some reckless part of her still longed for things she had no business wanting.
The worst part was knowing that living here with him, for however long it took, would only make it harder to walk away again when it was done.
***
The smell of bacon woke her. Julia blinked, disoriented for half a second before the night before came roaring back.
Not her apartment. Not her life.
Julia rolled out of Leland’s bed—suddenly too big, too warm, too… him. Her stomach growled and she stopped, trying to remember when she last ate. With bacon on her mind now, she followed the scent into the kitchen.
He was already there, standing at the stove in only jeans and bare feet.
“Morning,” he said, glancing over. His gaze tracked downward, past his too-big shirt to her bare legs and feet, leaving his mark everywhere without him touching her at all.
“You don’t have to cook for me,” she said, amazed her voice was even in the presence of bare skin, all that muscle, and more tattoos than she recalled.
“I’m used to it,” he said, flipping strips of bacon with tongs.
“Aren’t you worried about splatters?” she choked out.
“If you keep the heat low, it’s not a problem.” He scooped up what looked like a half pound of bacon and laid it out on paper towels to soak up the grease. “How do you take your coffee?”
“With a little milk, but I’ll get it,” she said, hurrying to the counter with the Keurig. Anything to get her mind off a half-naked Leland only a few feet away. “Would you like a cup?” she asked over her shoulder.
“Please. I take it black.”
Why wasn’t she surprised?
She set his mug on the counter beside him and perched on a stool at the bar separating the kitchen from the living room, since he didn’t have a kitchen table. She sipped, watching him wipe out the bacon pan and crack eggs into it.
“So, what do we do?”
He glanced over. “Do?”
“Yeah. To keep from climbing the walls while on lockdown. I’m used to being busy.”
He shrugged, and she tried not to stare at the play of muscles in his shoulders. She failed.
