Page 27 of A Real Goode Time

“Yeah. You asked about…certain habits of mine.” She chewed on the inside of her cheek, a shoulder lifting, lowering, demure. “Sometimes, that’s the only way I can fall asleep. I get…tense, and worked up, and my brain keeps feeding me these images and ridiculous scenarios, you know? Things that will clearly never happen, and I can’t shut my brain off, can’t stop the scenarios—the fantasies, I guess you could call them—from running through my head, until I’m so frustrated and worked up…” Her eyes dropped. “You know.”

I swallowed hard. “And you…had trouble falling asleep last night?”

“Uh-huh.” She laughed, embarrassed, blushing, the mug now fully obscuring her face. “God, why am I telling you this?”

“Well, it can’t top the fact that yousawme.”

“I didn’t mean to. And I know I should have gone back upstairs, but I was so…not expecting to see…that, that I just…froze.”

I held her gaze. “It happens, Torie. I ain’t mad about it.”

She looked back, a moment of boldness. “And, if you want the truth, I didn’t…mind what I saw.”

“Even though I was watching porn? And the girl in the video looked like you?”

“I did notice a resemblance.” God, this moment was tricky. The sexual tension was through the roof. “I watch porn sometimes, too.”

Well…that was hot. And unexpected.

“You ever watchwithanyone?”

A long hesitation. She looked away. “Godno. No way.” As if the very thought was utterly alien.

“Me either. I always thought it would be fun, though. With the right person.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would be…fun—hot…with the right person.”

The undertones were clear as day. She saw and felt them as much as I did—I saw as much in her eyes, the way she shifted, would meet my eyes, and then look away.

But then, she’d just said she couldn’t start anything. Not unexpected. But part of me wished I was asshole enough to push for a little messing around before she had to go. Take what I could get.

I couldn’t, though. I’m not that guy. I wanted more than to just mess around with this girl. And if I couldn’t get everything with her, it was best for her and me both if we just didn’t even dip our toes in that pond.

I cleared my throat. “I, um. I’ll get your things. So you can change. Be right back.”

I bolted before my libido ran away with my sense. Her clothes were in the dryer, and I dumped them into a plastic laundry basket. Brought them up to her. “Here. I’m gonna go get started on the Nova. Join me whenever. I’m not much of a breakfast person, but help yourself to whatever, if you’re hungry.”

“Not a breakfast person, either.” She took the laundry basket from me. “Thanks for this.”

“No problem.”

I turned away before I flat out asked her if I could watch her change. Fucking creep.

I headed downstairs, for the Nova, grabbed a socket wrench and flipped it in my palm, peered into the open engine bay and figured out what was left to do on the installation of the rebuilt 440.

Once I had my game plan for the rest of the work mentally sorted out, I got to work. I was just getting started on the wiring harness when I happened to glance up to where the laundry machines were—and saw that an article of Torie’s clothes had fallen on the concrete floor at the base of the dryer.

A bright red thong. Barely a handful of silk strings and a scrap of crimson lace.

Shit.

I left the wiring harness and snagged the underwear off the floor, headed back upstairs to give it back to her. I didn’t sniff it, because that would be creepy. It was just clean laundry. Nothing weird.

I tapped a knuckle on the door and pushed in, speaking as I entered. “Sorry, I just realized this fell out of the basket—”

Torie—standing in the middle of the loft, a pair of jeans up around her waist but not yet fastened, opened to show an upside down triangle of bright yellow. She was topless. Her shirt was in her hands, and she was about to lift it up and put it on—frozen, now, the shirt crumpled in her fists at her waist.

I blinked, my eyes helplessly taking in her bare tits, which were just as magnificent as I’d imagined.