on the sofa, watching the seconds tick past. That might keep his mind off of just how badly he wanted a cig—
Shit.
He battled the urge to reach up onto the end table for the pack that habitually lay there. Then he remembered it wasn’t there anyway, because he had smoked the last cigarette it held hours earlier. Not long before Becca had evidently tossed a blanket over his sleeping form, he thought when he noted the cotton covering tugged up to his chest. Man, he must have slept like a rock not to have dislodged it—or himself, for that matter—from the cramped sofa.
Which meant that, at the moment, not only did he have a wicked crick in his neck, but Dishwaterblondilocks was probably still sleeping in his bed. And realizing that just made Turner crave a cigarette more. Because ever since the two of them were teenagers, he’d wanted nothing more than to find Becca in his bed. Just, you know…with him. But hey, at least he had her halfway there now, right? Because she was in his bed. Just, you know…without him. Still, she was probably all rumpled and warm and contented, the way he’d figured she would be when she was in his bed. She just wasn’t that way because he had spent the night making her all rumpled and warm and contented.
Trying not to think about the fact that the only reason Becca was in his bed in the first place was because she didn’t trust him, and with a heartfelt groan of frustration, Turner jackknifed into a sitting position on the couch. He rolled his head back and forth to relieve the tension in his stiff neck—and tried to ignore his stiffness elsewhere. Then he scrubbed his hands over his face and through his hair in an effort to rouse himself.
Coffee, he thought. That was what he needed most. Well, maybe second most, he amended as he pushed himself up to standing. What he needed most was fast asleep in his bed—without him. And even if she wasn’t fast asleep, she’d still be oblivious to his feelings for her.
Automatically, he moved in the general direction of his kitchen and went about making coffee. And he tried to make as much noise as he could, so Becca would be jolted awake—hey, why should she wake up feeling good when he was going to feel like hell all day? But he never heard a sound of stirring. Obviously, she slept like a rock, too.
He inhaled a deep lungful of the coffee as it was brewing, and that fortified him enough to find his way to his bedroom. The door was standing half-open, so he peeked inside. Then he immediately wished he hadn’t. Because not only was Becca still sleeping soundly in his bed without him, she had kicked the covers down to the foot. And although what she chose to sleep in was in no way sexy—a shapeless, long-sleeved nightshirt imprinted with nauseatingly cute cats wearing nauseatingly cute nightshirts—it was bunched up around her waist, so that her sweet ass, encased in soft red cotton, was right there in plain sight, as were the delectable thighs Turner had spent many nights fantasizing about burying his head between.
His libido launched into the lambada just looking at those loins.
And it actively annoyed him how he was always alliterative when aroused.
He squeezed his eyes shut tight to block out Becca’s bodacious butt, something that only made the image more graphic. Probably because closing his eyes enabled him to start fantasizing. And since the object of his fantasies was right smack in the middle of his reality, not to mention oblivious to the fact that she was frequently front and center—especially her front and center—in his fantasies, that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. So he opened his eyes again, just in time to see the object of his fantasies—and her bodacious butt—beginning to stir.
He told himself to duck out before she caught him staring at her like a lovesick teenager. But he couldn’t make himself move away from the door. Mostly because Becca chose that moment to roll over onto her back and propel herself into a full-body stretch, something that made her nightshirt ride up even higher. It also had her gripping the wooden spools of his headboard with both fists as she spread her legs toward the lower corners of the mattress.
And oh, God, did that make him want to do things he knew he shouldn’t want to do. Not with his best friend who didn’t return his feelings. Call him crazy, but Becca might be a little alarmed if he hurtled himself onto the bed, pulled down her panties, buried his head between her legs and ate his fill of her while penetrating her with his fingers.
Of course, he pondered further, that would probably go a long way toward finally waking her up….
He must have made some sound that reflected his yearning, because she suddenly stopped stretching and looked toward the bedroom door. “Good morning,” she said with a sleepy smile.
“Afternoon, you mean,” he corrected her. That much, at least, he would concede. It was afternoon. It just wasn’t necessarily good. Then, because he couldn’t stop himself, he smiled back and added lightly, “I see England, I see France.”
She narrowed her eyes at him in confusion. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t quite as awake as she seemed.
“I see Becca’s underpants,” he added for clarification.
She glanced down, then hastily back up at Turner. And for one delirious second, he thought—hoped—that instead of rearranging her clothes, she was going to ask him in a silky, seductive voice why didn’t he come on over there to see even more of Europe. There was just something in her eyes—okay, so obviously she was still half-asleep—that made him think she was as hot and bothered at the moment as he was. Then whatever had sizzled between them was gone—if it had ever been there to begin with—and she began to tug her nightshirt back down, over England, over France, over her sweet ass.
“Uh…sorry,” she said as she awkwardly completed the action.
Not me, Turner wanted to reply. But he said nothing, not trusting what he might say—among other things—at the moment.
Unable to help himself—probably because he was a glutton for punishment, or maybe because he hadn’t had enough sleep, or maybe because he felt edgy not being able to smoke, or maybe all of the above—he strode into the bedroom, until he was standing only a couple of feet from the bed. Then he sat right next to her and arced his arm over her body, to brace it on the mattress on her other side.
Yet she said nothing, only gazed at him with huge brown eyes that were filled with something he told himself he’d be better off not pondering. Mostly because he was afraid if he pondered it, he’d figure out what it was, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, because as long as he didn’t know, he could still harbor a hope, however crazy, that maybe someday she’d be in his bed, with him, not just because she trusted him implicitly, but because he made her hot as hell.
So instead of pondering, Turner leaned forward, closing what little space was left between them, until his face was scarcely inches from her own. She really was rumpled and warm from sleep, he couldn’t help noticing, her face flushed and her breathing shallow from that early morning sort of breathlessness. Somehow, though, he kept himself from reaching out to her, from skimming his fingertips over her fine skin and silky hair.
He couldn’t avoid the scent of her, however, because it rose up to encircle him, entice him, enchant him. She smelled like summer soap and springtime laundry, a fragrance made all the more poignant because the weather outside was cold and gray, heralding the onset of winter, and it would be a long time before he encountered such warmth and sunshine again. Better than that, though, she smelled like cigarettes, something he wanted almost as badly as he wanted Becca, which made her doubly desirable.
Her eyes, like polished onyx, had grown larger, darker, as he’d drawn nearer, and they searched his face, so close to her own now, as if she were seeking the answers to the mysteries of the universe there. Her fingers
