“Apology accepted.” I took his hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry I called you an asshole.”
He looked up. “You didn’t.”
I grinned. “Oh, yes I did.”
He chuckled. “Well, it was deserved.”
“No more being mean to me, okay?”
“You have my word.” He smiled. “Unless you start with the name calling again. So was it just asshole? Or were there more creative adjectives?”
“I can be very creative.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Now you’re just teasing.”
I smiled and stretched, then remembering my lack of clothes pulled the sheet around me self-consciously. “I need a shower.”
Heath leapt off the bed and grabbed a fresh pair of boxers and a t-shirt from the dresser, throwing them on the bed. “You can wear these while your clothes are drying. I’ll make us a coffee while you shower.”
Standing lathered in soap under the warm spray of the shower, I couldn’t help but smile at Heath’s kindness. He had a big heart. I wondered if those girls with their false eyelashes, long nails and short skirts, knew what a great guy he really was under all that showmanship he presented onstage. I wondered if they knew he was always smiling, always friendly, always thinking of others first. Or if they even cared. Onstage he was a magnificent creature who soaked panties and set hearts on fire; offstage he was one of the nicest guys I had ever encountered.
He made me feel things I couldn’t explain. But I would be leaving soon. My life wasn’t in California. There was no point in starting anything that I couldn’t stop when I returned to Georgia. And something told me if I started anything with this guy, I wouldn’t be able to stop. He was too much to love. And I was on a time limit.
The spray of water felt good on my head and I sighed.
After a thorough shampoo, I found a tub of conditioner to run through my hair and took time soaping up my body. My hangover was subsiding and I was starting to feel better with every passing minute. The shower was bringing me to life again when suddenly small fragments of the night before swung before my closed lids.
He broke the surface and rose out of the water, his thick, muscular body tanned and glittering with beads of water. His wet jeans hung low on his hips, the wet fabric of his t-shirt clinging to every curve, every ripple of muscle on his torso. He turned to face me and I could see the wide expanse of his broad shoulders, so round and large beneath his shirt. Big hands ran through his wet hair and his tattoos moved as if they were alive over strong forearms as his muscles flexed. But it was his face, that beautiful, amazing face that caught the breath in my throat. Wet lips broke into a dazzling smile, as blue eyes sparkled at me through dark lashes.
My eyes flicked opened.
Oh hell.
His lips were wet but oh so warm against my mouth. His tongue was smooth and strong as it worked with mine in a slow, intoxicating rhythm.
I was rooted to the spot, with soapsuds sliding down my slick skin, as more fractured memories slowly came back to me.
“Harlow, I don’t want to make love to you when you’re like this. When I make love to you, I want you to be sober …”
Oh hell. God. Holy Jesus. Fuck.
Had Heath really said that? Or had I dreamed it?
I dropped to the floor of the bath and drew my knees to my chin. Water gushed over my head and over my shoulders.
“Why not me, Heath?”
“What are you talking about?”
Oh my God. No! I covered my face with my hands.
No. No. No. No. No.
I was not that girl.
Not, some whiny girl having a cry about a guy not wanting me.
“What’s wrong with me? You want everything with a pulse … except me …”
Ugh! Apparently, I was.
I groaned and closed my eyes. Great. I’d thrown myself at Heath just like all the other girls and the thought made me feel sick. I would have to apologize. But could I make up for acting like such a whiny princess?
Rising to my feet, I let the water wash away the last of the soapsuds. Of course I could. I would apologize to Heath for … oh God, did he really have to hold me up while I threw up outside of the club?
After turning off the faucet I squeezed the water from my hair and wrapped myself in a towel. I was running a comb through my tangled hair when there was a knock on the bathroom door.
“Harlow…?”
“Yeah?”
“There is a spare toothbrush in the third drawer of the vanity. It’s yours if you want to brush your teeth.”
I retrieved the brush and gave my teeth a good scrub with minty toothpaste and rinsed them well. Slipping into the boxers and baseball shirt Heath had given me I flicked my hair back and stared at my reflection in the mirror. It was then I remembered.
“I think I’m in love with you Heath.”
Oh my god. I had mentioned the L-word.
I think I might be in love with you too H-bomb.
I gasped.
Oh hell.
Chapter Eleven HEATH
The look on her face when she came out of the bathroom told me all I needed to know.
She remembered last night. Or at least some of it.
When she hesitantly entered the room I knew she was feeling awkward. She looked adorable in my boxers and baseball shirt with Dillinger across the back. It made me smile. My name looked good on her.
She sat down next to me, curling one leg under the other. Her hair fell in dark wet strands around her freshly scrubbed face. She looked embarrassed and I couldn’t help but grin. Call me a dick, but she was so cute when she felt uncomfortable and I kind of enjoyed it.
“So I guess you remember a lot more about last night than I do, huh?” she said, looking so adorable that I fought off the urge to grab her face and kiss her.
“Considering the amount of alcohol you had … I’d say that is a fair assumption.” I grinned and she closed her eyes in embarrassment.
When she opened them again she said, “I’m so sorry Heath …”
I feigned ignorance. You know. Just to fuck with her. Yeah. Yeah. I was douche. But if you saw how amazing she looked sitting there, so pretty and sweet, looking all awkward … hell, she was perfect.
She bit her bottom lip and my dick felt the tiny flick of her tongue and the soft scrap of her teeth right through to its tip. It moved and pulsed and I could feel it growing. If she kept doing shit like that, I would have to take care of it myself. I hadn’t been laid in weeks and I had world of built up sexual urges begging for release.
“I told you I was in love with you, didn’t I?” she said, sheepishly.
“Maybe.” I glanced at her sideways.
“Sorry about that.”
My smile faded. “Don’t ever apologize for that,” I said.
She smiled sweetly. But our eyes locked and something passed between us. The air crackled with it. Something we both felt. A silent fork in the road. It was time to stop circling each other. It was time to admit how we truly felt about one another. I knew it. And in that moment, so did she.
She shook her head and stood up abruptly. “I can’t do this, Heath.”
I jumped up and took her wrists in my hands. “Why not? Why can’t this be right?”
“Because I can’t give you what you want.” She fixed me with those piercing sea-green eyes. “I won’t be this week’s flavor and next week’s leftovers.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked a little harshly.
“You can have any girl you want, and you’re choosing me?”
“Yes,” I cried. “Yes, that is exactly what I am doing.”
* * * * *
HARLOW
It was hard not to scoff.
“I’ve seen the girls you’ve been with. I don’t even compare to them.”