"Mm-mm. Better get back to it."
He rolls me over so he's on top of my body and grins. "Are you ready to come even harder?"
I grin too. "Oh yes, please."
Chapter Nine
Reese
I wake up in the morning and realize I'm lying in Arden's bed. I'd meant to sneak out after she fell asleep. First, I'd meant to kiss her good night and casually walk out and go to my room. But she was so sweet and warm tucked under my arm, with her head on my chest, that I couldn't make myself tell her to move. Once she fell asleep, I kept lying there listening to her breathing and inhaling the scent of her, while she still had her head on my chest.
Eventually, I fell asleep.
Which explains why I'm in her bed, but not why I couldn't bring myself to leave her last night. I never spend the night with a woman, not anymore. The few times I did, the girl would get clingy and needy the next morning, and I had to be an arse and sneak out when she wasn't looking. Trust me, telling a woman you don't really want to date her, that having sex doesn't mean you're signing on for a lifetime commitment, never works. So yes, I skulked out.
But not last night. And not this morning.
I'm lying here in Arden's pink bed, but she isn't in it.
Have I been sneaked out on like I'd done to women in the past? Maybe it's my punishment for behaving like a "sleazoid." I'd only done that three times, and not in at least four years. Chance had given me a dressing-down for that behavior when he found out what I'd done, and believe me, there's nothing like a big-brother lecture to make a bloke never want to go through it again.
Besides, I never liked letting my family down.
Which sounds odd, I know. I'm the brother who screws around and doesn't stay for breakfast, but I also don't run off without saying goodbye. Not anymore. Not after seeing the disappointed look on Chance's face. He hadn't told our parents what I'd done, but his disappointment was more than enough.
I turn on my side in Arden's bed and get an exhilarating dose of her scent. Not only the aroma of sex from the three times we'd done it. The scent of her. I crush her pillow to my face and haul in an even bigger dose of her. The aroma fills my nostrils and overpowers my senses, making me feel strangely... relaxed.
Ah, the scent of Arden.
What am I doing? I spring up, sitting there with her pillow in my hands, and try to answer my own question. I can't be... enjoying this. Being in her bed. Waking up here. Spending the night with her.
No. I'm still sleepy, that's all.
I drop her pillow and get out of the bed, gathering my clothes and pulling them on while employing every fragment of my tattered willpower to keep from thinking about how fantastic her pillow smells.
Other aromas waft into the bedroom now. Is that bacon? Pancakes? I sniff the air, and my stomach grumbles.
Maybe Arden hasn't skulked away from me while I slept. In her bed. The pink one.
I tiptoe out into the hallway and down to the living room, like I'm a prowler about to get caught. Arden is in the kitchen, cooking something that sizzles on a skillet and humming softly to the music playing through her earbuds. I can't hear the music, but I recognize the tune as one of those power ballads from the eighties. The bar blocks my view of the lower half of her body, but I can see her shirt. The pastel plaid fabric looks so good on her, and she's left the shirt half unbuttoned so I can see the center of her chest and get a tempting glimpse of the sides of her breasts.
Why couldn't she have worn a turtleneck? Is that too much to ask for?
She looks up, sees me, and smiles as she takes her earbuds out. "Good morning, Reese. Hungry?"
That smile. It's the single most beautiful thing I've ever seen, full of bright, sunshiny joy.
Christ, I've turned into one of those lovey-dovey idiots.
"Good morning, Arden," I say. "I'm starved. Is that pancakes I smell?"
"Mm-hm. Blueberry this morning. I hope you like that."
"I'll eat anything. Just ask my family. Dane once dared me to eat a handful of grasshoppers, and I did it."
"Ew." She wrinkles her nose. "I don't cook insects for breakfast. Only for Thanksgiving dinner."
"Is that an American tradition?" I ask, taking a seat at the bar. "I thought it was turkey and pumpkin pie, but insects sounds a lot more interesting."