She laughed. “I have a hard time picturing that.”
“Every picture of me under the age of three is on a sister’s hip, with a sippy cup or a pacifier or a lollipop in my mouth. It was a tough life.” Though until he was at least four, he’d thought his name was actually Rhettie-poo. His reality was bad, but at least not that bad.
“Apparently.” Shawn parked her car alongside the house and turned to him. “Maybe that’s why you grew up getting what you want. You’re used to it.”
“Maybe.” But he didn’t tend to think about the psychology of how he was raised. He liked to be in charge in the bedroom and that’s just the way he was. It didn’t require diagnosis. “Since you weren’t expecting me until Monday, I’m sure my room isn’t ready. I can sleep on the couch.”
That seemed to throw her. “Okay,” she said, but she looked troubled.
Exactly as he intended. He wanted her to invite him into her bed.
Rhett opened the car door and pulled out his bag. They walked the few feet to the side of the house, Shawn pulling back the squeaky storm door and propping it with her shoulder. He took the weight of it, holding it for her.
“Thanks,” she murmured as she shoved the wood door open and flicked on the hall light.
It was a typical ranch, with the side entrance opening onto a tiny landing with two steps up to the kitchen, and a narrow steep staircase straight in front leading to the basement.
Before she could step inside, Rhett dropped his bag on the gravel and dirt drive, and kicked the metal bar on the bottom of the screen door with his foot so it would hold the door on its own.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking down at the propped door.
“Carrying you over the threshold,” he told her, no smile, just all serious intention. It may be a fake marriage, but that didn’t mean a girl didn’t deserve to have a little romance. He wanted her to feel comfortable around him, comfortable with her decision to have him in her home, her life, for six months bare minimum. He wanted her to like him enough to open her body to him and let him inside so they could both gain as much pleasure as possible from their arrangement.
“Oh, God, please don’t,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “It seems so fake. Forced.”
“I don’t believe I asked you for permission,” he told her, reaching over and gripping her under her backside and lifting her into his arms.
She was light, but she shrieked and instantly squirmed and flailed. “Put me down!”
“I intend to. In your bed,” he promised. And that’s where he was going to leave her. Alone, aroused, wishing for his hard cock.
• • •
SHAWN really didn’t want to be in Rhett’s arms being carried over the threshold like a blushing and happy bride. But neither did she want him to drop her down the basement stairs, so she realized it would behoove her to quit jerking around. Given his spot on Evan Monroe’s pit crew as a gasman, he had killer biceps and excellent strength, but he probably didn’t work out by wrangling giraffelike women with thrashing limbs, so if she valued her skull, it seemed best to at least get into the kitchen before putting up a fight. Because she had to put up a fight to get out of his embrace or she was going to find herself in bed with him on top of her, and then how the hell was she supposed to say no to nekkid fun?
He wouldn’t ask. He would just start stripping her, and it was so damn hard to say no to him. It was like she was looking at a shaman or something, the way he stared at her so intently, like he was digging into her sexual soul. Saying no would feel bad, but she would have to, and really she just wanted to avoid the whole situation. But she could allow herself one tiny moment to relax and feel very feminine and very womanly captured in his rock-solid embrace. He was doing it—watching her, while his grip on her was firm. He smelled good, like skin and heat and nothing more.
When they got up the two steps to the kitchen, she didn’t bother to fight. It felt kind of good, actually, and why deny herself? “Do I get a sippy cup next?” she asked. Then realized immediately there was all sort of naughty directions he could take that question, regarding other things she could put in her mouth.
But he didn’t, surprisingly enough. He just said, “No.” But then he did add, “It’s bedtime, young lady.”
Oh, God, that shouldn’t have turned her on, but it did. She heard herself giggle nervously, and was appalled. She was a giggler, she had to admit, but Rhett wasn’t the guy you giggled with. He wasn’t going to laugh back.
Nope. He definitely didn’t. He just kept walking, in the dark, through the kitchen and past the living room and down the hall, like he knew the house. “Don’t you want to turn a light on?” she asked. “I don’t want you to trip.”
“I’m fine.”
“My room is the . . .” Room he was already going into. “How do you know your way around my house?” she tittered. Now she was tittering. Good God. Next she’d be simpering.
“Common sense.”
Of course. It wasn’t like all ranches didn’t have about the same basic floor plan. Shawn said, “Just set me down next to the bed, thanks.”
But he didn’t. He deposited her on her bed, brushing her hair back off her cheek as he bent over her, his hip close to hers, warm breath rushing over her face. Shawn waited, teeth clenched and shoulders tense.
“Can I use the bathroom first? I just need five minutes,” he said.
Now that wasn’t what she was expecting him to say, but it made sense. He probably wanted to brush his teeth. Not that he had bad breath, because he didn’t. But he probably wanted to before bed, and he wanted to dig a condom out of his bag, sure he was going to get some. Which he wasn’t. She put a stop to her pointless panicky thoughts and managed a casual, “Sure.”
“I can find it myself.” He stood up, the air around her suddenly empty.
He went into the hallway, partially closing her door on the way out, which was courteous. Shawn lay on her bed, forcibly letting her body relax, one muscle group at a time.
He was coming back, wasn’t he?
An hour later, it was evident he was not. She’d heard the toilet flush and the sink run, then there had been silence. Nothing but silence.
She had kicked off her shoes and gotten under the covers, but she was still wide awake, waiting for him to creep into her room and hit on her, so she could tell him no. Which she now realized wasn’t going to happen. So eventually she found herself doing the creeping, climbing out of bed and down the hall to the living room to confirm what she knew—that he wasn’t coming into her room. There he was, fast asleep on the couch, in his jeans and no shirt, on his side, hands tucked under his cheek in a way that was pretty damn cute. The bare chest wasn’t cute, it was smoking hot. She cursed the fact that he’d left the light on by the back door, because otherwise she wouldn’t have seen what she was missing.