Playing for Keeps Read online

  “I think I’m jealous,” he said.

  She moaned. “You should be. I’m in love. I hope your showerhead is single.”

  He watched her hands run over her wet, soapy body and made an executive decision. “Move over, clearly you need some help in here . . .”

  A long time later, back in his room, Sadie dropped her towel and began to gather up her clothes. She hit her knees and went ass up to fish under his bed for something, and every single thought flew out of his head.

  She came up with her panties.

  “You don’t have to go,” he said. “It’s late. Just stay.”

  She stood and slipped into her undies.

  He crooked a finger at her.

  She arched a brow and reached for the rest of her clothes. “I don’t know if you’re aware, but it’s not really PC to crook your finger sexily at a woman and expect her to come to you.”

  “Noted.” With a grin, he rose from where he’d been sprawled out on the bed and headed to her instead. “But for future reference, you can crook your finger at me anytime and I’ll come running.”

  “Not going to happen,” she said. For whatever reason, she wasn’t feeling playful anymore and turned away. “I’m going to get out of your hair. Let you have your space.”

  He came up behind her, and careful not to startle her, leaned in and rubbed his jaw to hers. “Feels like maybe you’re the one needing her own space.”

  She stopped dressing and her voice went a little husky as she slowly rocked her butt into his erection. “How is that even possible?” she breathed.

  “You were naked and on your knees, ass up,” he said. “One of my favorite sights.”

  She rolled her eyes and moved toward the door.

  “Stay,” he said, cupping her face, his thumb gliding over her soft skin. “It’s late and it’s cold. You don’t have to wake up with me if you don’t want. I’ve got a bazillion other rooms and you’ll be warm in any of them.”

  A small smile curved her lips. “Are you suggesting a sleepover of the platonic kind? Are we going to braid each other’s hair and paint our toenails and have a pillow fight?”

  “I’m game for the pillow fight,” he murmured, brushing his mouth against her temple. “But fair warning, I fight dirty.”

  She gave him a playful shove with a laugh. “You do a lot of things dirty.”

  “Uh-huh, and you love it.”

  She laughed and then went serious and met his gaze. “Truth?”

  “Always.”

  She shook her head. “I still don’t know what to do about you.”

  He sank his fingers into her wet hair. “How about you sleep on it?”

  “Only if I can take another shower in your bathroom in the morning.”

  She didn’t know it yet, but she could take whatever she wanted. His shower, his clothes, his bed . . . anything. Because she already had his heart and soul.

  Chapter 24

  #JustDontScrewItUp

  A week later, Sadie was working on a client, a postal worker named Irene, inking a bracelet of skulls and bones and enjoying the work.

  “Are you aware that you’ve been smiling to yourself for an hour?” Irene asked. “It’s super cute.”

  Actually, Sadie had noticed the smile in the mirror this morning. Caleb’s mirror, since she’d spent every night this week at his house.

  The smile wouldn’t go away.

  At first, it’d disturbed her. Why the hell was she smiling all the damn time now anyway?

  But she knew.

  She felt . . . different. Fuller, from the inside out, starting in the region of her chest. Ivy had told her that unfamiliar sensation was happiness.

  Her phone buzzed on the side table and she glanced over at it. Her mom. She’d tried just about everything to get rid of the perma-smile but nothing had worked.

  The call did it.

  She hit ignore because she was working, but she didn’t need to answer the phone to know what her mom wanted.

  To remind her that this weekend was the big practice rehearsal dinner at her parents’ house. She was to show up with a date. The same date she was supposedly bringing to the wedding the following week.

  Somehow in spite of that, she remained shockingly smiley through the rest of the workday, no doubt thanks to the orgasms she’d had that morning in Caleb’s bed. And his shower. And in the kitchen . . .

  At the end of her day, she left the Canvas Shop. She’d finally gotten her car back that morning, aided by a paycheck with some overtime on it—along with the fact that Caleb had paid her utilities for the year. She wouldn’t need a bus pass anymore, and that was a huge relief.

  She slowed at the fountain in the courtyard, drawn in by the musical sound of the water falling into the copper bowl. More than a few people who worked or lived in this building had made wishes here, wishes for love. And those wishes had come true, a fact that was both fascinating and utterly terrifying.

  “Thinking of making a wish?”

  Sadie turned and found Ivy watching her. Ivy went through her pockets and pulled out a quarter.

  “No need,” Sadie said. “Old Man Eddie already made a wish for me. I nearly dove into the fountain to yank the coin out.”

  “Scared it wouldn’t take unless you made the wish yourself?”

  “More like terrified the wish would take.”

  Ivy smiled, but she seemed muted today.

  “Maybe you should wish,” Sadie said.

  “I wish all the time.”

  This surprised Sadie. “You’re wishing for . . . love?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Rumor is that it does make the world go round.”

  Sadie let out a low laugh. “If you believe that, then I’ve got some swampland to sell you.”

  Ivy gave her a get real look. “Have you seen yourself lately? You’re smiling. Like all the time.”

  “That’s not love. That’s orgasms.”

  “I’m betting it’s both,” Ivy said.

  “Bite your tongue.” But Sadie was a little worried her friend was right. “You really want love in your life?”

  Ivy shrugged. “Last year on my twenty-eighth birthday, I realized I was lonely. I figured out it was because I’ve never lived in one spot for longer than six months. I’ve never had a place that felt like home, or a person in my life from one birthday to the next. I love it here and I’m staying.”

  “And you want someone to share this life with.”

  Ivy nodded. “I do. Have you never wished for that, not once? If Caleb went away right now and your life went back to it just being you, would that work for you?”

  She’d never thought about it, but for the rest of the night she thought about little else.

  Because she couldn’t imagine her life going back to how it had been without Caleb in it.

  The next morning, Sadie woke up to Caleb’s alarm sometime before the butt crack of dawn. While her mind struggled to awareness, a long arm reached past her to silence the alarm, and then the hand that belonged to that arm slid down her back to cup her ass, reminding her she was naked.

  Caleb slept in the nude and he liked skin-to-skin. She had to admit she was quickly getting addicted to the feeling of being held in his warm embrace all night up against that lean hard body.

  And he was right. He wasn’t perfect. No perfect man got up this early every morning by choice to go to the gym and meet up with friends and pulverize the shit out of each other.

  For fun.

  Sometimes he’d come home between the gym and work, and if she was still in his bed, he’d go for yet another round of cardio, where, let’s face it, she was more willing receiver than active participant because she didn’t do mornings.

  But she was slowly starting to come around to his way of thinking.

  Today he came back. She heard him let himself in and she lay still, feigning sleep as he planted a hand on either side of her and leaned over her.

  “Rise and shine, Tough Girl,” he said.

&nb