***
Morning came too soon. Addison couldn’t believe she was still sore after a whole night’s sleep. Granted, they’d had sex twice more, but they’d gotten at least four or five hours of actual sleep too. Hadn’t they?
The whole night was a blur. She felt hungover but she knew she wasn’t. And even after sleeping so deeply, her body was still weak and exhausted.
With a groan, she rolled over looking for Fox. He was there, blinking wearily at her. The sheet had been pulled down and revealed his sculpted chest, and she paused to admire it.
“Hi, sexy.” She smiled at him.
He brought his hand up and gently pushed the hair from her eyes. “Hey, gorgeous.”
Warmth grew in her belly then trickled down to her toes. She couldn’t believe a guy like him wanted her. She felt cozy and safe and protected in his bed, and in his arms. It was hard to stop grinning. And it wasn’t just the sex. That was . . . fucking amazing. But the way they could talk about anything and it felt she’d known him her whole life. And that every time he touched her, she felt invincible. Like nothing in the world could hurt her because she was his.
The submission he’d won from her—especially last night—ran so deep, it shocked her. She’d never guessed anyone could inspire that in her. No one had ever been able unlock that, to see every bit of herself that she hid from the world, and better, to like her anyway.
It was overwhelming. She’d given him the most vulnerable parts of her psyche and trusted him not to hurt her. How could something be so uncomfortable and so freeing at the same time? It was its own kind of adrenaline rush.
“What time did we say we’d help your grandma?” he asked, stretching his arms over his head. The sheet slipped further down and her mind blanked.
“Um.” She cleared her hoarse throat and forced her gaze up. “Ten? What time is it now?”
“Nine.”
“I should get up and shower.”
Before she could move, he gathered her into his arms. “Mmm. No. You look adorable and you smell like me.”
“I smell like sex!” She laughed and he kissed her nose.
“Exactly.”
Warmth covered her and she had the overwhelming sensation that she was precisely where she was supposed to be. In Fox’s bed, naked in more ways than one. Stripped raw with her heart in his hands.
***
“Are you nervous?” Addison glanced at Fox in the passenger seat.
Fox unclenched his hands in his lap. “No. Of course not.”
She chuckled. For all his badassery, the quiet anxiety on the way to her grandmother’s house was unexpected but cute.
Scowling, he continued to stare out the window. “I don’t like being a passenger.”
“Well, whose idea was that, Mr. Control Freak?”
He was still freaking out about Marcel. That morning, he’d insisted they take a minivan they never used and that she drive so he could keep watch. Fitting that she’d be driving a Soccer Mom Mobile toward the senior citizen condos. Was she twenty-three or thirty-nine? She wasn’t sure which was more conspicuous for Fox to be driving—a minivan, looking like he did, or a sports car worth a hundred thousand dollars. Their computer repair business cover story kind of sucked.
Addison had given her parents the money for Gran’s expenses with the explanation that people had donated anonymously via one of those fundraising websites online. She wondered what they’d say if she told them it was from Fox. It would probably be an automatic “in” with the family but Fox didn’t want the spotlight. Not that her parents would have accepted it knowing it was from her boyfriend who wasn’t much older than she was.
Her parents had taken their house off the market a few days ago and arranged for her grandmother to move right away. Fox had insisted on going with Addison to help Gran move. She wasn’t sure if it was to be helpful, to slyly meet her parents, or if it was still about protecting her from invisible threats.
She pulled in behind her dad’s car at the condo then turned to look Fox over. The tattoos would be a shock but with the collared polo shirt he’d put on to “look decent”, he passed as a handsome, if not slightly edgy, upstanding gentleman.
“You look hot,” she told him, folding his collar down where part of it stood up.
He grimaced. “I feel like a dork.”
“A hot dork.” She laughed.