Page 35

Rocket

I wake up slowly.

Not from exhaustion. No, although my body feels used in all the best kinds of ways, but rather fromreplaying last nightin my mind.

Willow standing before me, naked with those eyes of hers daring me to lose control.

The strangled moan she emitted as I pushed into her.

The sting of her teeth when she sank them into my shoulder as she came.

There was nothing calm about what happened between us. No careful seduction, no finesse.

It was hot and frantic andneedyin a way that sex hasn’t been for me in ... maybe ever.

Sex is usually pleasure. A guaranteed win. A reprieve and a reward.

But this? With Willow? Last night was hunger. Connection. Anticipationas a definite escape, but that held more meaning than normal.

And I’m not quite sure what to make of it. But one surefire way not to is to do it again.

My chuckle is sluggish as I roll over, ready to pull her into me again. Ready to lose myself in her again ... except when I reach out, the bed’s empty.

No warm body. No long hair tangled on my pillow. Just the comforter folded back and an empty spot where she was.

Shit.

I sit up slowly, blinking against the sunlight bleeding through the curtain, and scrub a hand over my face.

I shouldn’t care. This is a classic Rocket Caldwell move—be gone in the morning to avoid attachment.

And yet ... fuck . Where is she?

I mean we had sex. Great sex. Memorable—even if I’m still thinking about it.

Does she regret it? Is she already chalking it up to being buzzed? The fact that she lives here and can’t leave without seeing me again?

But I don’t take her as a one-night stand girl.

Yet the bed is empty. Her clothes are gone.

And why the hell does thatbug me?

But before I can spiral further, my bedroom door creaks open ... and there she is.

Wearingmy T-shirt, hair a mess, legs bare, carrying two mugs of coffee, and a smug-ass look on her face.

My dick instantly salutes the situation.

But when she meets my gaze, her eyes narrow, and her lips pinch. “You thought I did the walk of shame back to my bedroom.”

“Why would I think that?” I play it off.

“You did, didn’t you?” She looks bewildered as she holds out a coffee mug to me.

“Well, it doesn’t do a man’s ego a lot of good when he wakes up and the woman he wants is gone.”

“Uh-huh.” She sits on the edge of the bed, her knee bent, giving me a hint of what I want just beneath.

“Because you’ve never snuck out in the middle of the night so you don’t have to wake up to whoever you just spent the night with?

” A smile toys at the corner of her mouth. “Please, correct me if I’m wrong.”

I smirk, leaning back on my elbows as my eyes take in her nipples pressing against my shirt and then dip lower. “I don’t do the walk of shame,” I say playfully.

“Neither do I.”

“Says the woman wearing the sex shirt she ripped off me last night.”

“You weren’t wearing a shirt when I got home.” Her eyes scrape down my chest, and her chest hitches. “That’s part of the reason we’re sitting here like this right now.”

“That’s all it takes with you? No shirt and you’re ready to go?”

“It did last night.” She fights a smile. “Shirt was on the dresser. Didn’t think you’d mind if I borrowed it.”

“By all means—I’m definitely not complaining.”

She takes a sip of her coffee like she didn’t hear that, but her cheeks go pink.

It’s fucking hot.

She dips her eyes down toward her coffee and studies it like it’s one of her textbooks. Why do I get the feeling that I’m about to get the straight-and-narrow Willow?

“Wills?”

“Hmm?”

“Just say it.”

Her eyes flicker up to me and then back to her coffee. “I get that this could be ... awkward. You know, since we slept together—”

“We did?” I tease.

“And that I live here. That I work for you. Like ... I understand if this is just a one-time thing and you want—”

“Did you rehearse this in your head while you were making coffee?”

“Maybe.” She sighs. “Maybe even before I got up.”

I chuckle. “Then clearly I didn’t fuck you properly if you were up that early and not exhausted.”

She nearly chokes on her coffee, coughing into the rim of the mug.

Igrin like an idiot. That comment definitely got under her skin—and not in the way I did last night. But still ...

What the fuck am I even doing, saying this shit?

I’ve never lived with a woman I’ve slept with. Never had coffee or had the morning-after banter with someone walking around my house inmy shirt.

This is a whole new level of domestic chaos I wasn’t prepared for .

“Hey.” I reach out and rub a hand over her knee and squeeze. “How about we just go along with whatever happens, huh?”

She studies me over the top of her mug. Her expression is quiet, unreadable, and for a second, I think she’s going to backpedal—gladly take the walk of shame and not look back. To her room.

“You paid for my drinks last night.”

Interesting. Where is she going with this? I nod. “I did.”

“Were you trying to get me drunk?”

I chuckle and lean toward her, brushing my fingers across the hem of her shirt—er, my shirt—grazing her thigh. Goosebumps chase over her skin.

“The thought of any man touching you was enough to drive me crazy. But your theory works too.”

She laughs, and damn, that sound and the way her tits jiggle against the fabric could wreck me if I let it.

She sets her mug down on the nightstand and then takes mine and does the same before I even get to enjoy it.

She’s freeing our hands.

Does that mean morning sex? Fuck . I’m here for it. I’m already ready for it. I’m—

“So, fine. Yes, to let’s just see how it goes, but we need to lay some ground rules—”

I groan and flop back on the bed, dragging the sheets over my face. Not exactly what I had in mind. “Strait-laced, rule-loving Willow is back. I knew it. Just when I was starting to like you.”

She grins and runs a fingertip up the sheet that’s covering my thigh. My cock bobs beneath the thin fabric. She lifts her eyebrows and meets my eyes. “Youdolike me.”

“Don’t push it.”

“But I can fuck it?” She crawls up to straddle my hips with zero hesitation and a wicked look in her eyes. Her bare thighs pin me down.

“Willow,” I groan as she grinds over me and the sheet. I can feel the heat of her pussy. The wetness soaking through.

“You want to throw the rules out the window, Rock?”

“Ido.” She grinds. “Right now, I definitelydo.”

Her hands slide down my chest, fingers tickling the skin as her mouth stops just short of touching mine. “Guess you’ll just have to convince me. ”

She presses her lips to mine as she grinds her hips again. We sink into the kiss. It’s slow, deep— hot —scrambling all thoughts other than her. Now.

And just as I’m about to flip her over and do just that, Poppy’s voice yells down the hall. It’s a panicked sound—probably because she can’t find one of us.

Willow freezes, and she drops her forehead to my chest. She groans but is already jumping off the bed.

“I’ll go,” I say.

“Not with that, you won’t.” She motions to my erection and scrubs a hand through her hair.

I watch her walk out the bedroom door. The sun halos around her, and her tanned legs move down the hallway until I can’t see her anymore.

I stare at the ceiling and wonder how the hell my life got turned upside down by a nanny, a three-year-old, and a night like last night that was damn-fucking-fantastic.

Christ, Rocket. When did you get so soft?