My feet shifted. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got it totally wrong. I don’t see you like that at all.”
His head fell back into the cradle of his hands as he shook his head at the ceiling. Then he collected his backpack and baseball bag, his gaze sticking to me before moving toward the doors. “Fine.” The word echoed in the spacious lobby. “You want to play this game? You want to play the game? I’ll play along.”
My chest ached again as I watched him move away from me, realizing I’d successfully pushed him away. “I’m not playing a game.”
“Sure, you are. First point goes to you, but don’t get cocky.” He paused at the revolving doors, his mouth twisting into a dark smile. “I’ll win.”
In short, today had sucked. In detail, today had topped the charts of worst day ever, going back to ancient history, spanning into distant future.
Getting through a long work day with Soren’s confrontation at the front of my mind was next to impossible. I’d only made it thanks to copious amounts of caffeine and denial.
The first thing I’d done after Soren shoved out of the revolving door, was call my mom and assure her a thousand times that I was okay and apologize for “worrying her sick.” After fifteen minutes of repeating I was okay, she finally seemed to accept that no disaster had found me.
The next matter of business had been texting my friends who’d also been worried about me, letting them know I was accounted for and unscathed. I didn’t realize Soren knew who all of my friends were until I had to get back to just about every contact in my phone.
When Ellis handed off my updated portfolio later that morning, he wasn’t acting any different than usual. He was back in his suit and barely had five minutes to spare for me. I’d totally let whatever happened last night get blown out of proportion in my head. Nothing creepy or unusual had gone down. Other than my own behavior.
After flipping through the new photos he was passing on to the “colossal” client, I realized he’d only added the nude poses from the start of the shoot. The ones where I’d gone out of my way to ensure my lady bits and pieces weren’t displayed. He said my expression looked awkward in the more revealing shots.
No wonder. It had been awkward being naked and hovered over by my agent who was sporting wood an arm’s length away.
It was after ten at night by the time I emerged from the subway tunnel close to the apartment. It had been a busy day, and I might have gone out of my way to make it extra busy since I was dreading whatever was waiting for me inside the apartment.
Soren had gotten some stuff off his chest this morning—but I knew there’d be more. He wasn’t the type who boxed stuff up or swept it under the rug.
My eyes wandered down the hall toward Mrs. Lopez’s apartment, and I wondered when I’d finally catch a glimpse of her. Next, I found myself wondering why I felt so heartbroken over pushing away the guy who was possibly banging the neighbor next door?
The bathroom door was closed, the sound of the shower cranking. With it being Monday, I knew Soren had worked a shift at the pub after school and practice. I’d been hoping to come home and find him passed out at the table, asleep on his books like I found him some mornings. He hadn’t gotten any sleep last night and had had a packed schedule today. He had to be tired.
Maybe after the shower, he’d be too tired to talk. Maybe he’d just want to crawl into bed. Maybe if I kept getting home late enough for the next couple of weeks, he’d just forget about the whole thing. It would become a distant memory. Never surfacing again.
Maybe not, I realized as I moved past the bathroom into the apartment. For doing a decent job of keeping his mess under wraps, he’d really let loose tonight. Baseball gear and his dirty uniform were scattered around the floor, his jockstraps hanging from the ceiling fan again. Dishes were scattered around the table and the kitchen, wads of crumpled up homework paper placed everywhere besides the inside of the garbage can. If this wasn’t his way of sending a message, I didn’t know what was.
I wasn’t sure if it was more a fuck you or a fuck me, but it unmistakingly gave the fuck it vibe.
Sighing, I did my best to ignore the disaster and headed for my clean, organized area. After changing into my pajamas, I waited a few minutes for him to finish his shower. Wasn’t happening. No way there was any hot water left. He’d been in there forever and who knew who long he’d been in before I got home.
Meandering back out into the apartment, I passed a few more minutes by pacing. I was tired and wanted to go to bed, but I couldn’t stand going to bed without brushing my teeth, and my toothbrush was in the bathroom.
As I paced, my eyes kept flickering to the jocks hanging from the fan. Mr. Giant. Jane’s latest nickname for Soren kept playing in my head until I found myself stepping onto one of the chairs and reaching for the nearest swinging jockstrap. Goodness gracious, what was I doing? I chided myself even as my fingers clasped the small tag inside the cup region so I could read . . .
XL
Mister Giant.
My legs teetered on the chair, practically spilling me over before I caught myself. Letting go of the tag, I lowered myself back to the floor, my face on fire as I glanced toward the bathroom to make sure he hadn’t caught me spying on the size of his jockstrap.
Why was I behaving like this? Like a shallow, petty girl who messed with a boy’s heart—and jockstraps—and played games like a seasoned pro? I didn’t play games. I’d heard of them, but I didn’t know the first rule or requirement of them.
Was I though? Playing some game? Playing a bunch of them?
Yeah, I liked Soren. No, I couldn’t be honest with him about that. It wasn’t a game I was playing; it was a matter of survival. The only man I’d been close to and loved had left. My dad. I never wanted to open myself up to that kind of pain again. I didn’t want to be left. Abandoned. I didn’t want to hurt someone because of those fears.
I couldn’t fall in love with Soren Decker. There was no deceit in that—it was one of the few truths I knew.
“Soren?” I made my way to the bathroom door and rapped on it.
No answer.
“Soren?” I tried, louder this time.
“Yeah?” he called from inside, the shower still blasting.
I pushed past the pain in my chest from hearing his voice. “I need to brush my teeth and go to bed. How much longer are you going to be?”
“A while.”
My forehead fell against the door as I calculated how long it would take me to get to the twenty-four-hour convenience store a half a mile away.
“You can just come in and brush your teeth if you want. I don’t care.”
Something about the way he said the last part made me shift in place. “You’re going to still be a while?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re not doing your . . .” I cleared my throat. “Self-love right now?”
“Took care of that earlier,” was his immediate response, making me glare at the door like Mrs. Lopez was about to show up with a plate of cookies and wearing lingerie.
“You sure you don’t mind?”
“Hayden, I don’t care what you do, okay?”
All right. So much for playing whatever game he’d thought I was interested in. He was not looking to score any points or win whatever game this had been as of this morning.
“Coming in,” I announced, opening the door and stepping inside. A plume of steam rolled over me, instantly coating my skin in a hot, dewy shield. “Hot shower?”
“Hell of a lot better than the cold one I took a couple of nights ago.”
His voice echoed off the walls as I focused on squeezing a glob of toothpaste onto my brush. It was difficult. I found myself quite distracted by the knowledge he was naked behind that thin shower curtain, a whole three feet away.
Just as I was about to stick my toothbrush into my mouth, the shower cranked off, the curtain whipping open right after.
Soren. Wet. Exposed.
Giant.
; My eyes clamped shut, but it wasn’t fast enough. From the low chuckle he gave, he hadn’t missed my two-second gape.
“Soren!”
“Sorry. Water got cold.”
I gave him a few seconds to cover up before I opened my eyes and got back to brushing my teeth. He hadn’t covered up though.
“What are you doing? Grab a towel.” My arm flailed in the direction of where we kept our fresh towels hanging from the rack. My eyes felt like they were about to go crossed from staying focused on my reflection instead of his naked one in the same mirror.
“Out of fresh towels. Haven’t gotten around to the laundry.” He moved up beside me at the sink, reaching for his own toothbrush. He was standing so close, his wet arm was brushing against mine.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down. Don’t look at the giant—
Crap. I looked.
He was grinning at me as he brushed his teeth, my face crimson thanks to what I’d glanced at.
“See anything you like?”
My body was still buzzing from what I’d seen that I liked. I kind of hated him for calling me out on it though. I kind of even hated him for having so much to like.
“I know what you’re doing.” My eyebrow rounded as I got to work brushing my teeth too.
He spit in the sink, somehow winding up closer to me when he leaned back up. “Air drying?”
My eyes narrowed in the mirror at him. “Trying to change my mind.”
He stared back, brushing his teeth in all of his naked glory, a cocky tenor to his expression. Once he finished brushing, he rinsed his toothbrush and turned toward the door.
“I don’t need to change your mind,” he said, pausing when he was directly behind me.
When he turned, I swore I could feel his arms coming around me, pulling me into the shelter of his strong body. An involuntary shudder spilled down my back. He didn’t miss that either.
“I just need you to speak it instead of lying about it.” His eyes dropped to the back of my neck, where I knew he could see the raised flesh. I knew, because one side of his mouth lifted.
Bracing my hands on the sink, I didn’t blink as I locked eyes with him in the mirror. “It takes a lot more than washboard abs and a giant . . .” Crap. Something else. “Ego to get my attention.”
Soren leaned forward, his hands framing around the outsides of mine, his arms running the length of mine. His chest didn’t touch my back, but I could feel its expanse hovering above it. “I’ve already gotten your attention.” His eyes dropped from mine to my chest. Where it was rising and falling noticeably hard, my nipples pushing through my camisole. “I’m looking for something else.”
Another shudder, this one spilling down my legs. “What?”
His crooked smile changed into a cryptic one before he leaned back and opened the door. “You’ll see.”
“Soren—”
“Don’t worry. I’ll tell you when you give it to me.”
My fist curled around my toothbrush as I turned toward him. “I’m not giving you anything.”
“You’re giving me something right now.” He didn’t glance back before leaving the bathroom. Did he really need to have that nice of an ass when he already had a glorious package? I was screwed. “This point goes to Decker.”
Push-ups in his underwear the next morning. Practically right outside of my divider, so I had to lunge over him to head to the bathroom. Later that night, I came home to find him shirtless in those low-slung sweats, going between studying and knocking out pull-ups on the bar he’d screwed into the wall.
Later that week, there were a couple more instances of him emerging from the shower naked and walking around the apartment like we were in some nudist colony, and there was no end to the countless episodes of him brushing by me closer than necessary or reaching over me to grab the ketchup or reaching around me to get a spoon. He wasn’t easing up, no matter how many days went by. In fact, he only seemed to be getting more persistent.
“Hayden?” A knock came outside the bathroom door. “I need to shower before work real quick.”
I accidently squeezed too much shampoo from the bottle when I heard him. It was early evening, and Soren always went straight from practice to the pub when he had a shift. I hadn’t been expecting him back until later tonight, when I’d conveniently be asleep. “Why didn’t you shower after practice like you always do?”
I’d just climbed into the shower and was sudsing shampoo into my hair. I wasn’t just going to hop out because he was in a hurry and had totally changed his schedule on me.
“I didn’t have enough time,” he answered.
“You didn’t have enough time? Soren, that makes no sense at all. You had time to come back here to take a shower instead?”
“I had to grab a change of clothes.”
“What happened to the ones you were wearing before practice?”
“They got dirty.” His voice wasn’t coming through the filter of the door anymore.
“Soren, what are you doing? Get out.” I stuck my head out from behind the curtain to find him sliding past the door. “Why are you wearing swim trunks?”
He held out something familiar. “Here. Put this on.”
“Why do I want to put my swimsuit on when I’m in the shower?” Shampoo suds were starting to run down my forehead. I needed to rinse it out before it got in my eyes.
“Because I didn’t think you’d want to be naked with me in the shower. That’s why I put on my swimwear too.” He pinched at his swim trunks, moving closer.
My eyes rounded when I realized what he was proposing. “You are not hopping in the shower with me.”
“Yeah, actually, I am. If I’m not out of here in ten minutes, I’m going to be late, and being late at the pub is like asking to be fired. I need the money, so put on the suit or don’t.” He waved the bikini my direction. “Thirty seconds before I’m climbing in.”
“Soren, I was here first. This is insane. This isn’t a community shower.”
“Actually, it is. The bathroom is a community space, a shared one.” He started counting seconds off on his fingers. “If you ever need to shower when I’m in there, go for it. I won’t mind.”
Ripping my suit from his hands, I ducked back into the curtain. “I’m sure you wouldn’t,” I grumbled, sliding into the bottoms first.
“And five . . . four . . .”
“So help me, god, Soren . . .” My arms twisted behind my back, madly working to tie the top together.
“Three, two, one,” he said in one breath, shoving into the shower right after.
I was still working on getting my top tied and adjusted.
“Need a hand?”
“A compacted one aimed at your face would be a good start,” I said, glowering at him.
His eyes lifted as he reached for the ties I’d been working to secure. “May I? I’m going to have to actually touch you to complete the task though.”
“Fine. Like I care if you touch me.”
“You’ve been going out of your way this week to avoid it, haven’t you?” As his fingers tied the back of my top, they only brushed my skin a few times, but each instance made my lungs malfunction.
I’d been hoping that I’d become immune to his touch if I went long enough without feeling it. Of course, the total opposite was true.
Once he’d finished tying, I made sure everything up front was covered before turning around so I could rinse the shampoo from my hair. I didn’t close my eyes as I did though, knowing this shared shower wasn’t thanks to happenstance.
He swallowed as he watched me rinse my hair, but his gaze stayed north of my neck. He had better willpower than I did, I realized with chagrin. As much as I hated it, every time he’d swagger by shirtless or something-less, I couldn’t not gawk at what was on display.
“Shampoo.” He pointed at the bottle before reaching around me to grab it.
His forearm grazed my shoulder, and from my reaction, I’d have thought he’d just slid his h
and inside my swimsuit bottoms. Jolting, I moved aside so he could stand under the showerhead. However, since the shower was maybe double the size of my high school locker, I had to smash against him as we switched positions. My hands found themselves dropping to his chest for support so I didn’t tumble out. His found theirs pinned around my hips.
As soon as we were switched, his hands let me go. Mine lingered a moment longer before falling away. He got straight to wetting his hair, shampooing it right after. His eyes didn’t travel my way the whole time. It was like he was taking a shower by himself for all the attention he gave me.
When he reached for the soap, my eyes might have drifted to his swim trunks. Did the man own anything that didn’t like to hang low off of his hips? My god, my pulse felt like it was visible in my neck from the way my heart was firing. And what evil plot had God been aspiring to when he created a man with those sloped muscles and that trail of hair all leading to one very “manly” part?
It was like having a flashing neon sign to advertise the goods.
When my eyes slid a little lower, I didn’t find any of the “goods” straining through his shorts. No bulge. No wood. No signs of arousal.
Crap. Maybe this really was just about a shower.
“Would you mind getting my back?” He shook the water out of his hair, opening his eyes as he held out the bar of soap.
“What do you do when you take a shower by yourself?”
He lifted my hand, dropping the bar of soap in it. “I call the shower fairy.”
Exhaling, I rubbed the soap around in my hands to form a lather before setting it down and lowering my hands to Soren’s back. Just skin, muscle, and bone. Human anatomy. Perfectly natural. My mind chanted those reminders over and over as I washed his shoulders and back. Unfortunately, my body felt differently.
That familiar ache between my legs spurred to life. The desire to have him shove me up against another wall was overwhelming. My body was charging with energy, my mind dizzy with need.
I wasn’t sure how my hands wound up around in front of him, slowly traveling down the planes of his stomach until my thumbs where just slipping inside of his shorts. I wasn’t sure what would have happened if he didn’t quake, a ragged groan vibrating in his chest.