Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Lolly

Shit! I was so fucked up over Cammie’s stupid shit last night that I didn’t think about what would happen this morning. Now, I have no clothes, all my makeup is still in my bedroom and it’s four in the morning. I’m going to have to wake the bear.

Stupid Cammie! I blame her. If she didn’t have a stupid rubber dick in her shower I wouldn’t have to wake a total stranger to beg for my freakin’ clothes.

I knock softly at first but then I have to do it harder. I couldn’t possibly just sneak in and take my stuff, that would be an invasion of his privacy. Finally, I hear a muffled call telling me to come on in. I don’t expect him to still be in bed when I do. And shirtless… again.

“I just, um, have to…I’m sorry for waking you…”

He waves me over like he wants to tell me something or he can’t hear me, which is much more likely since I am practically whispering everything I say. Once I get in arm’s length of the bed, he moves like a coiled snake. I am under him before I can think. His lips come down on mine in the space of a heartbeat and his tongue demands entry before I can put up a fuss.

My hands go to his chest -his bare chest- and for just a second I forget that I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not supposed to be kissing him or thinking about how wonderful his mouth is against mine. He’s a freakin’ stranger. All these really good points are slow to enter my head. Once they do they hit like a hammer on glass, and I find myself pushing against him. He immediately rolls off me and lets me up. I pop off the bed like I have a spring connected to my back.

“I’m sorry. I was…dreaming…”

Of someone else. Oh dear God! Mortification hits my cheeks and settles in my stomach.

“I knocked and you said to come in.” I spit it out like it’s a curse, making my mouth feel dirty and too dry.

“I forgot where I was for a moment.”

Jeez, Lilly, you just kissed someone else’s man. I would love to try to blame him, to try to say he semi-attacked me but he didn’t force me to kiss him and I never should have come so close to the bed in the first place. This is all on me. I didn’t even check to make sure he was really awake first.

I turn my back on him. It makes it easier to talk…and think. “I just need to grab my bag and my makeup. I shouldn’t have…I’m the one that needs to be sorry. I…”

I rush across the room grabbing things as I go, shoving them into my bag, and letting the heat in my cheeks settle. I don’t realize he’s moved until he comes up behind me and stops me from my frantic dash to grab my shit by taking my hips in his hands. I let out a squeak before I can build up a resistance to his touch…as if I ever could.

He turns me so that I have no reason not to look him in the face, “I’m really sorry about grabbing you, Lilly.”

“I…I should have made sure you were fully awake. I…is, um, your…person going to be mad about the…I’m so sorry.”

“My person?”

How the hell can I tell what to call the woman, or man, he is committed to? For all I know it could be his fucking wife. Holy shit, I think I’m going to be sick.

“Your…girlfriend/lover/wife/boyfriend/husband? Whatever you call your significant other.”

“Okay…first of all, I couldn’t even imagine having that many people to put up with. I’m a one-woman man, sweetheart. Secondly, I do prefer women. And third, I don’t have a girlfriend or wife…or lover for that matter.” He pulls me a little closer with every point he makes.

I should really jerk away from him, and maintain space between us. But I’m apparently not doing a lot of things I should be doing.

“What made you think I had a girl?”

What made me think he had a girl? I don’t know, the fact he is the hottest thing I have ever seen walking. Or maybe the fact he is the biggest man I have ever been around, and I grew up on a farm with some pretty big guys. None of them are as broad and built as Ander is.

“You…said you were dreaming and that you thought you were somewhere else. I just assumed you were dreaming of your girl…woman. That you wanted to be with her and mistook me for her because I was, um, close. And, um, you kissed me like…you were thinking of someone when…”

I trail off not finishing the rest. Now that I say it out loud it just sounds stupid. He could have been dreaming of a girl in a movie. Do guys dream of girls in books because I sure know girls dream about their book boyfriends if they’re lucky.

He gives me a half-cocked smile. “Sweetheart, I’ve not had a woman for a really long time. You have nothing to worry about and no need to be sorry. You just came to get your clothes. I was the one who put his hands where they shouldn’t have been.”

So, he just thought I was some random girl. One he didn’t care if he knew or not. He was basically having a wet dream, and I was…handy. When I think about it that way, it kind of makes me mad. I’m not sure why but the thought of Ander acting that way to any female close by has my stomach souring. Maybe it’s because I know if it were my sister he locked lips with, I would have to kill her and it wouldn’t have stopped with just a kiss. No, she would have already been naked and riding his…I stop and pull myself away from him. He didn’t do anything with my sister but I still can’t help but be a little pissed at the thought.

“Why are you up so early getting dressed?”

I shove the anger down and focus on his question. “I have to drive into town and open the shop.”

“The shop?”

“Yeah, me and my friends, Bonbon and Candy, pooled our resources and opened a hybrid candy shop/bakery. I have the picture we took when we first opened right over here on the mirror.”

“Uh, you want me to drive you?” He steps in front of me making his offer.

I’m already shaking my head.

“No. I’m sorry I had to wake you up so early as it is.”

“Are you coming back tonight?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll make us dinner. So, you don’t have to worry about it since you’ve been up so long working.”