I rub my hands up and down my legs. “Not at all, but I think you’re smart enough not to make a big deal of it.”
“Oh, I am.” She pulls her jeans off and tosses them on top of the red shirt before she climbs into bed. Adjusting her pillows, she looks up at me from beneath her long lashes. “And before you start making a big deal, no, Cal and I did not sleep together.”
Stretching my legs back down the sheets, I flex my feet and hold up my hands defensively. “I wasn’t even going to bring it up.”
“You were thinking it. We just went to a few more bars.” She grabs the remote from the nightstand, but before she switches on the flat screen TV, she cocks her eyebrow. “You tired?”
With thoughts of Wyatt still strumming their way through my brain? Hardly.
For an hour, Heidi and I sit in complete silence, which is a fete for us considering we both loathe quiet situations. The only thing she finds worth watching is a rerun of Game of Thrones that she’s probably seen no less than ten times. Midway through the episode she crawls to the bottom of her bed, lies on her stomach, and refuses to look away from the TV, as if she hasn’t already witnessed her favorite character’s death.
“I hate this scene,” she whispers. “I’ll never watch this show again. It rips my f**king heart out.”
“You said that last year.”
After the end credits play, she turns the TV off and blinks, her head lolling forward a bit. She’s seconds away from passing out. Then I’ll be up alone, thinking about shit that I shouldn’t. Thoughts that I would have been over by now if I hadn’t accepted Wyatt’s deal back in New Orleans.
Heidi returns to the top of her bed and stretches out on the pillows. Though her eyes are closed, she turns her head in my direction. “Do you think this is actually it for you and McCrae?”
“Yes.” I say it too quickly. The muscles in my face stiffen, but I continue, “Maybe. At some point, we have to stop trying if it’s not going anywhere.” Wyatt and I reached that point a long time ago, but I hadn’t realized it until last year, a couple of weeks after our Thanksgiving Day hookup.
“You said that last year,” Heidi says sleepily.
Yes, but this year is different.
Although Heidi is probably planning on having a ten-hour sleep marathon, her chances of accomplishing that is cut short when Wyatt shows up to our room a little after nine. He leans against the doorframe, his body relaxed as if we hadn’t argued last night.
I match his nonchalance and give him an easy smile that’s the complete opposite of how I’m feeling. “Morning,” I say.
He glimpses over my head and snorts when he eyes Heidi passed out on her bed, curled into a fetal position and breathing heavily. “Did you get my text?”
“Turned my phone off.”
“Avoiding me?”
I lick the corner of my lips. “Dodging drama.”
He curls his hand into the hem of my shirt and inches into the room, closing the space between us in a series of short, deliberate steps. The sound of his boot dragging across the carpet is loud enough to mask the deep breaths I take.
“Dramas not all bad, beautiful.”
Shaking my head, I stare him down. “It is when I end my night wanting to murder you.”
Wyatt’s gaze lowers. His eyes are intense, unblinking, and the apology that I want from him is there, clearly visible behind the turbulent blue depths. I’m just not sure if it’s enough.
“We’re leaving in an hour.” But his fingers creep beneath my tee, splaying out on the smooth skin just below my belly button.
I mirror his movements, pressing my palms on either side of his abs. “I’ll wake Heidi up.”
He drops his mouth a little closer to mine, and his warm breath fans my face. I tilt my chin up. “Not yet.” He traces the length of my torso, all the way up to the sensitive spot beneath my br**sts and then back down, cupping the wide curves of my hips. “You’re still angry.”
Why does he have to make everything so difficult? Why does he have to tear me down at every turn, just to make me want him at the next? “Of course I am,” I hiss, suddenly out of breath. “You acted like a jealous idiot.”
“And you haven’t?”
“I’ve never insulted anyone speaking to you in a bar. Not even when it was anything but innocent.”
He mutters a curse, and when I expect him to just get the verbal apology out of the way, he surprises me. He picks me up. And he literally hauls me over his shoulder.
“Put me down,” I warn.
He ignores me, moving out of the doorway. He uses the toe of his boot to ease the door together quietly.
“Wyatt, so help me—”
“You’ll what, beautiful? Hit me? Scream?” His pierced lips drag up into a wicked grin. “You know I love it when you do both.”
Because I don’t want to give Heidi the shittiest wake up call ever, I don’t scream at him. Instead, I rake my sorry excuse for fingernails up his back through his soft black tee shirt. He chuckles, and I can feel it vibrate through my body. “You think that’ll stop me from talking to you?”
No, because he’s probably getting a boner from it.
He doesn’t let go of me until we’re behind the bathroom door and even then he sits me on the sink’s beige granite countertop, locking my legs between his. I hit him in the chest, hard, but he doesn’t budge.
“You’re letting it all out now, aren’t you, babe. First jealousy, now this?” I demand. “You must truly want me to experience everything you’ve got to offer before we go back to L.A.”