No Weddings (No Weddings #1)(28)

“By genre. Then alphabetically.”

Her eyes narrowed a fraction, and she looked at me, as if she could see more of me by my OCD music-organization tendencies.

I shrugged.

She turned and kept investigating as she moved toward the head of my bed.

Nothing much else to see. I didn’t keep many personal items. Most of the stuff on my desk was school or work related. Her hand paused when she turned toward my nightstand, and she glanced at me.

I arched a brow. “What? The brave explorer grows afraid of what might be behind drawer number three?”

“No. I’m just not sure I need to go there. I’m good with imagining.”

I laughed hard. “Condoms. Nothing frightening in there, only condoms.”

“Depends on your definition of frightening.”

I ran my tongue across my teeth, then smiled, slow and easy. Undaunted by her uninformed judgment, I shrugged. If she knew the quantity of condoms and the number of girls, she might actually be frightened. But I was who I was, a product of circumstances beyond my control, and I’d done my best to cope. If she ever grew brave enough to open my nightstand drawer, she would deal.

When she turned, a baseball cap that I’d left on the corner of the nightstand fell on the floor. She bent down to pick it up. “What’s this?” Crouching further, she picked up the yellow sticky note.

That yellow sticky note.

I shrugged. “A list of girls.” Looked like Hannah would get a glimpse after all.

“Friends?” Her eyebrows arched.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Friends with benefits.” She gave a curt nod, as if she understood without confirmation.

“Closer,” I hedged.

She cocked her head and flipped it over, examining it. I sat down in my desk chair, watching her. There was nothing I could do about her discovery, so I let it play out. No point in making an effort to hide what it was.

She put the list on my nightstand. “That’s a lot of friends.”

I shrugged. “I’m a friendly guy.”

Kicking off her shoes, she put her purse beside the list, above the drawer with the condoms. I tried not to smile at how her actions had staked a subconscious claim—well, in my deluded mind, anyway. She sat on the bed, then pushed back until she’d moved to the center of it.

“So, that’s like a small harem.”

I huffed out a laugh. “What does that make me, an Arabian prince?”

Her eyes gleamed with humor. “I doubt that.”

“You’d be right. I’m no prince.” I leaned forward, bracing my forearms on my thighs, curious to see her reaction to the truth of me. “It makes me a sexually satisfied and very lucky man.”

A glance at the list, then back to me. “Those women would have to be very satisfied to agree to be in a harem.”

I smirked. “One might think that.”

Our gazes held, locked. The temperature in the room started to escalate.

I had no idea what she was thinking, but with all the talk of my being sexually satisfied, I was already undressing Hannah in my mind and coaxing her into a number of sexual positions. But then my primal thoughts faded away as I got lost in those vivid eyes of hers.

Behind her sensuality, the girl sitting in the center of my bed held a large amount of vulnerability she couldn’t hide from me. I’d seen it before in her, but not to this magnitude. Both brave and scared at the same time, she didn’t know quite what to think of me.

Hell, I didn’t know what to think of me.

Sitting here with someone I actually cared about beyond a physical attraction was new territory since the devastating fiasco nearly two years ago, which had pushed me over the edge. And now that I’d climbed to the top of the abyss I’d fallen into—had been lost in for so long—I wondered if my salvation lie buried somewhere deep behind those greenish eyes.

“How about we not talk about my harem tonight. The only girl I want to focus on is you.” I leaned forward, swiped up the list, and dropped it into my top desk drawer.

Her eyes widened.

I clarified immediately, remaining three feet away from the sexiest temptation ever to grace my bed, keeping my ass firmly planted in my desk chair. “Business. The next two hours you wrangled out of me will be strictly business.”

Excitement lit up her face as she realized all of the time tonight would focus on helping her, and she moved to touch one of my pillows. Her hand hovered over the pillowcase, but she hesitated, and her brows drew together. Instead, she turned around on the comforter and eased down onto her stomach, facing me.

Her hesitation in touching something of mine, where I laid my head down at night, felt like a gut punch. I frowned and made a mental note to fix that shit ASAP with new pillowcases that no other woman had touched. I wanted her completely comfortable here. With everything.

She’d moved on, however, dropping her chin onto her raised hands and kicking her feet up behind her, crossing them. She smiled at me, looking eager to learn.

My throat went dry as I stared at her, blinking.

That was one position I hadn’t put her in.

Innocent, trusting, comfortable.

And that position had now become my favorite one of all.





The Valentine’s Doomsday had arrived. Activity buzzed around me at the event, but all of it seemed light years away. My gaze was lost, unfocused.