“I don’t want this to be complicated.”
He tapped the cage again and got the same reaction from the bird—nada. With a sigh, he came around to the opposite side of Sara’s bed and sat on the tangled comforter. Memories of how they’d gotten it so messy made him glance back at her, only this time she was smiling. Maybe she was thinking about the same thing. “Life’s complicated in general. You can take the easy route and be bored out of your fucking mind. I’ve done that for stretches.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”
“Don’t. Sometimes we all need to hide out for a while.” He rubbed her foot through the covers. “I know moving here was a big change for you. I also know that you value your friendship with my sister, and it means a lot that you’d rather not do anything that might make her unhappy.”
“She’s not the only one I value.” She patted the pillow beside her. “Maybe I haven’t made that clear enough.”
“If that’s a thinly veiled way of offering to show your affection through sexual favors, I heartily agree.”
She laughed and curled up on her side, extending her arm to him. “No more sexual favors tonight. I’m still recovering, remember?”
“I’m still recovering too,” he said, stroking the bed meaningfully before he rose to shut the door.
Just in case, he flipped the lock, though if Kim made it upstairs and discovered them together in Sara’s bedroom, it’d be pretty obvious they weren’t sequestered to work on the Times crossword.
Sara gave him a grateful look when he turned back to undress. He hauled his T-shirt over his head and shed his boots and jeans, leaving them in a pile on the floor. Her snort at his untidiness made him shift to give her a clear glimpse of his renewed erection, knowing that would quell her amusement.
Judging from the size of her pupils, he was right. “Low blow,” she murmured.
He grinned and crawled over the bed, caging her beneath him like a cotton burrito. She loved to bundle up right away, and now she couldn’t escape from her sheeted prison. “No, a low blow would be if I slid up this bed and fed my cock into your mouth again. And it’d be low because it would probably take me about five seconds to come.”
One of her brows winged up, and he swore his balls shouted for mercy. “You’d feed me your cock and I have no say in the matter, hmm?”
Well, now, this was interesting. “Does that intrigue you?”
“Maybe.” She flashed him an artificially innocent smile. There was nothing inexperienced about this woman, and he loved that about her. She brought her A-game to the table and challenged him at every turn, sexually and otherwise. “When I’m feeling better. I think tonight made me relapse.”
Groaning, he rolled off her and onto his side, facing away from her. After that near miss, he needed a minute. Or a frigging boatload of them. “You’re evil.”
She reached over and clicked off the light. Then she snuggled her warm, curvy body up against his back and gripped his swollen length. She pressed her thumb against the head as if he had an On button. Damn if it didn’t work too. “Still think that?”
“I will if you don’t move your hand,” he said huskily.
Chuckling softly, she swept her lips along his shoulder. Her hand, however, stayed painfully immobile. He could feel the wetness from his slit slipping out to coat her thumb. “Mmm, have I ever told you how much I love your body?”
“You could show me. With your fingers.”
Her laughter puffed across his neck and he shuddered. It took so little from her to make him crazy. “I suppose I have enough energy for a quickie. If you do all the work.” She bit one of the corded muscles in his shoulder, and he groaned. “Would that make you feel better?”
He didn’t answer her husky question. He scarcely even breathed. But his poor, ignored dick flexed in her hold, silently begging.
Apparently she decided to take pity on him, because she circled the crown of his erection, smearing the fluid there like the topping to her own personal banana split. He pressed his face against his forearm while she started to jerk him in long, even strokes, as easy as freaking Sunday morning. Except he was as hard as the frame of her bed, and his groin ached like he’d never come at all. He didn’t want easy. He wanted her to work his cock until his freaking head popped off.
“Aww, baby, you’re so tense.” Her mocking tone shouldn’t have made him thicken more, but it did. From her throaty purr of approval, she knew it. “It must be so tough for you, working all those long days bent over engines, playing with wires and valves and connections.”
He glanced back at her. Her lids dipped low over her eyes, and her pale pink lips curved. She looked playful. Even happy.
“I think you should come down to the shop and hold my pliers.” Before she could make a sound, he rolled over and pinned her beneath him, burying his face in the curve between her throat and her shoulder where her warmed vanilla scent was strongest. “You’ve never seen me work my magic under the hood.”
“Haven’t seen it,” she gasped as he rocked his cock against her covered mound, “but I’ve sure experienced it.”
“Allow me to demonstrate another facet of my technique.” He leaned over her and tugged the bedside drawer open, revealing her stash of condoms. “Thank God you had more than one. I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me. You’d never be the type to take chances.”
“Really? Look where we are. What we’re doing. And at my age, it’s not as much of a chance, at least when it comes to getting pregnant.”
“You’re forty-two, not sixty-two. I’m damn tired of hearing about it, actually.” He popped one of the condoms he found between her lips and grinned as she sputtered. “Hold that one for me.”