“Is this cool me staying here?” he asked. “It’s not like we need to do it for show.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I muse out loud. “I mean…if my dad stopped by unexpectedly, that would lend credibility to our story.”
Bishop gives a fake full-body shudder. “Please God, don’t let that happen.”
Laughing, I squeeze his hand, then press it deeper into my belly. His arm tightens around me and I feel oddly secure.
Strange because I was just feeling so vulnerable.
“That was nice of you to talk to Erik’s date tonight,” Bishop says into the darkness. I’ve got my blinds shut tight, as my neighbor’s house sits about twenty feet away, their bedroom directly across from mine. The first week after I’d moved in I got an eyeful of Mr. Crantz walking around naked, and the blinds have been closed ever since.
He feels my shrug, but I add, “She was cool. I’m sure Erik would have liked her had he managed to talk to her.”
The cringe that follows I’m sure he also feels. I didn’t mean for my words to come out so patronizing. Bishop is quiet for a moment and I wait for him to lay into me for judging his teammate, but he merely says, “That’s just Erik. He’s a total playboy and not ready to settle down yet.”
“She told me they had sex in the bathroom of the bar she worked at last night,” I tell him, feeling secure enough to share this with him.
Bishop chuckles. “Yup. And later that night, he left with another woman.”
Before I can process how rotten that is, I blurt out, “You sound almost proud of him.”
“Why? Does that make you jealous?” he says playfully.
“Not in the slightest,” I huff out, and he laughs again, pulling me even deeper into him.
“Don’t worry,” he tells me. “I was a good boy last night.”
“Yeah,” I mumble as I consider the reasons for his good behavior. “It wouldn’t be very helpful for the boys to see you on the prowl when you have a supposed girlfriend you’d been hiding from them.”
Another long moment of silence, and I wait for him to get mad. He brings his hand up and slides his fingers along my jaw. He turns my head so I have to crane over my shoulder to look at him. There’s just the shadowy outline of him, and I have no clue what expression is on his face, but his voice is very gentle.
Very steady.
“There is that…the charade we’re creating, but, Brooke, if I’m fucking you, I’m only fucking you. That’s the way I always roll.”
I’d have expected relief to course through me, but instead a cramp of desire hits me between my legs. It takes everything not to take his hand in mine and push it down my body.
Way down.
I don’t, though, because we’re actually carrying on a conversation, and that’s quite nice too.
“What’s the deal with this merchandising position?” Bishop asks, and that catches me by surprise. He sounds interested in me as a person. “Did you get a raise if you’re working two jobs?”
“No,” I tell him, and then go on to explain. “I’m sort of doing a work-interview with the merchandising director, Sebastian Parr. I’m hoping I impress him enough that he offers me a full-time position and I can leave team services behind. No offense.”
“None taken,” he assures me. “Besides, that’s your background right?”
“Mmmm-hmmmm,” I murmur, feeling the fatigue of the multiple orgasms I had tonight.
Bishop jabs me in the ribs with an index finger, lightly enough it comes off as ticklish. I squirm and let out a laughing yip.
“I need more than that, Brooke,” he chides me as he gathers me back up in his arms and pulls me in tight to his warmth. “College, work history, former boyfriends, funky quirks.”
He wants to know about me?
I mean, I know that was supposedly the theory behind us spending time together, but he actually sounds…interested.
“I’ll start with my career background,” I say as I tuck a hand under my chin. I tell him all about how I got my bachelor’s in fashion merchandising from the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York and had high hopes of becoming a buyer for a major retail store, but instead landed in the magazine world. I found out that it suited me well.
He listens to me patiently as I tell him about my job as the assistant to the editor and that I really did like it a lot, mainly because I had a great boss.
“Will you go back?” he asks.
“Maybe,” I admit into the darkness. “If the position was still available and things weren’t working out here.”
I had not really given this much thought. I’d committed to staying for at least a year to get my dad through the season should he need the support that long. But if he was doing well, and he would be okay without me, my heart is sort of back in New York.