Chapter Five
DEAN’S COTTAGE WAS dark save for the light thrown from the television. Emery stepped inside quietly, and Dean looked up from where he was sprawled on the couch wearing a pair of gym shorts and a tight tank top, his feet propped up on the coffee table. Did the man own anything that wasn’t tight across all those muscles?
“Hey, doll.” He pushed to his feet.
“Hi.” She tossed her keys on the counter, and that tingling feeling she got when a good-looking guy approached shot through her. She bent down to take off her heels—and to regain control of her overactive hormones. Clearly her body was confused, getting turned on by Dean when she’d sworn off messing around with friends. Going months without a man’s touch will do that to a girl.
“I figured you’d be back much later.” He put a hand on her hip to steady her as she wrestled with her second heel.
He smelled woodsy and rugged, so much nicer than the acrid citrus cologne Dave had worn.
“Me too,” she admitted. “Dave turned out to be a dud.” She took her phone from the hidden compartment in her heel and set it on the counter and then set her heels on the floor. Without them she was a good head and a half shorter than Dean, and stared directly at his chest. She tipped her face up and caught him grinning. “Why do you look so pleased?”
“Just glad you’re home. Now I have someone to watch movies with.”
Home. There was that word again. She had felt comfortable there from the moment she’d walked in yesterday afternoon. Maybe Desiree was right—home was more about the people they were with than the place they happened to be.
She walked into her bedroom and rifled through her clothes until she found a pair of sweats, pulling them on beneath her dress as she called out to him, “Would you believe after doing nothing but talking about himself all night, he had the gall to ask me to go back to his place?” She grabbed a tank top from her bag and laid it out before her, then gathered her hair over her shoulder and said, “Can you please unzip me?”
“What did you expect him to do?” Dean asked as he came over and unzipped her dress. “You picked him up in a bar.”
With her back to Dean, she whipped her dress over her head. For a sliver of a second before she pulled her tank top over her head, she felt the heat of his stare.
“Whoa, girl.”
“What? My back was to you,” she said, as if she’d felt nothing, and then circled back to his question. “I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe that he would talk to me about anything other than himself. Take an interest in me? Not that I’m needy, but honestly, a girl needs a little something.” She twined her hair into a messy bun and rifled one-handed through her toiletries bag, searching for her hair clip.
Dean reached around her, grabbed a clip and handed it to her.
“Thanks. Would you ever treat a girl that way?” she asked as she secured her hair and headed out of the bedroom.
“No, but I don’t pick up girls in bars, either.”
“Really? Then where do you meet women?”
He shrugged. “At my friends’ Christmas parties.”
“Good one.” She pulled open the fridge and spied a plate of ribs. “Oh, yum! I guess you had a good cookout?” She grabbed a rib from the plate and caught Dean looking at her chest. “Dean! You are a definite boob man.”
“What do you expect when you flaunt those eye magnets?” He chuckled.
She sighed. “At least you’re honest, and not an asshole.” She offered him a rib, and when he shook his head, she bit into the tender meat. Sweet deliciousness burst over her tongue. “Mm. This is amazing.”
“Thanks.”
She took another bite. “Sure you don’t want some?”
The corners of his lips curved up in a wicked smile, and he stepped closer. The small kitchen suddenly seemed even tighter as heat climbed up her torso. Uh-oh. She might have to visit the girls’ sex shop tomorrow and take care of the disease she was suffering from—lackanookie—before she jumped her roommate.
“That’s not really what I’m hungry for.” He reached up and wiped something from the edge of her mouth with his thumb.
Shivers raced through her with the intimate touch, knocking her a little off-kilter. She was definitely visiting the girls’ shop—and she was never talking to Violet again, because she had obviously planted ideas in her head about Dean.
Before she could misconstrue anything else, she said, “I know just what you need.”
She pulled open the freezer, and exactly as she’d thought, it was stocked with nearly every flavor of Dean’s favorite ice cream, Halo Top. He ate it by the pint, and she teased him relentlessly about it because he gave her such a hard time for eating Ben and Jerry’s. But sometimes a girl had to indulge in Karamel Sutra. That core. Lord have mercy! She reached inside and grabbed a pint of Halo Top Chocolate Almond Crunch, and beneath it, she found a pint of Karamel Sutra.
“What is this?” She plucked it from the freezer and held it up. “You’re secretly indulging in Ben and Jerry’s?”
“Hardly. You were supposed to arrive next week, remember?”
“Yeah. And?”
“And that was for you. I figured you’d want to binge-watch something at some point, and I wanted to be prepared. I even bought the first season of that show you keep begging me to watch. Outsiders.”
Her heart skipped a beat. She and Desiree used to do things like that for each other, but her guy friends would be more likely to toss her a beer when she showed up than prepare for her visit. Her older brother Alec had told her about the series, and she’d been dying to watch it. But Alec had a fledgling entertainment magazine he was trying to get off the ground, and he traveled often. He always seemed to have time to watch over Emery in a big-brotherly way, but rewatching a television series with her wasn’t how he wanted to spend the little free time he had.
“I think you just inched up a notch closer to the number one BFF spot. But…” She opened the fridge again and scanned the contents—fresh veggies, Greek yogurt, farm-raised chicken thighs… “Let’s see if you make the cut…”
He reached around her and pulled a can of whipped cream from the back of the top shelf. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
He set it on the counter and reached into a cabinet above her. His chest brushed against her back, and for a fleeing moment she allowed herself to enjoy the feel of his hard frame pressed against her. Friends, friends, friends, she reminded herself, struggling to ignore how good he felt. Could a person go through withdrawals from human touch? When the friends reminder didn’t take away the tingling in her lower belly, she pulled out the big guns—boss, boss, boss!
He took a step back, and cooler air rushed over her skin. Her breath left her lungs with a long, relieved exhalation.
There. That’s better.
Worse. But safer.
He set containers of chocolate and rainbow sprinkles beside the can of whipped cream, flashing a knowing grin. “What do you call nights like this again? Who-needs-men-when-I-have-Ben nights?”
And just like that her head cleared and she needed no more reminders. This man had become one of her closest friends. He knew her—all of her—the good, the bad, and the annoying, and he still spent hours on the phone with her, had helped her figure things out so she could come to the Cape, and he had offered her a place to stay without hesitation. Only an idiot would take a chance at screwing that up.
“I can’t believe you remembered that.” She opened the ice cream as he took two bowls down from a shelf.
He scooped the ice cream into the bowls. “Kind of hard to forget when it seemed to be your mantra for a while there.”
She opened the can of whipped cream and sprayed some in her mouth, thinking about what he’d said. “Not all of us are lucky in love. Open up.”
She aimed the can and filled his open mouth with creamy goodness, earning a dark look that made her mouth water. She turned her attention to spraying whipped cream onto their ice cream to avoid getting swept up in the wrong direction again.
He added chocolate and rainbow sprinkles to hers, leaving his without. After putting away the ice cream and condiments, he handed her a bowl and spoon and said, “Ready to binge-watch Outsiders?”
“You mean am I ready to bury my bad date?”
The muscles in the side of his jaw pulsed. “Thought we already did that.”
She followed him to the living room and curled up on the couch as he set up the DVD. “Girls don’t just bounce back from bad dates. Do guys?”
“How should I know?” he said as he sat down beside her.
“You had a string of first dates that you said were boring or the women were too into themselves.”
He filled his spoon with ice cream and grinned. “I guess we do, because you and I talked after each of those dates, and I don’t remember having anything to bounce back from.”
She stuck her spoon in his bowl and tasted his ice cream. “That’s not bad. Here, try mine.” She filled her spoon with Karamel Sutra and fed it to him. “See? You didn’t keel over from Ben and Jerry’s. Anyway, getting over bad dates takes time. Think of life as the stem of a rose. You know how it has all those prickly things on it?”
“Thorns,” he said.
“Yes. They’re like bad dates, and in between them, you have this lovely, smooth stem, the good dates.” She ate a spoonful of ice cream.
“And…?”
“I don’t know. It seemed like a good analogy at the time. Thorns draw blood. Bad dates draw bad feelings. It takes time to get over the sting of it. I’ll meditate it out of my system in the morning.”
He picked up the remote and said, “What you need is to skip the thorns and go straight to the calyx.”
“The what?”
“You know those green things at the bottom of the rose petals? Those are called sepals, and collectively, they’re called the calyx. It protects the flower in bud and supports the petals when it blooms.” He ate a bite of ice cream and turned on the first episode of Outsiders.
“Dating should be so easy.”
“You don’t need to date every guy in Wellfleet the first week you’re here,” he said under his breath.
She reached over and pushed the pause button on the remote, glaring at him. “What does that mean?”
“I heard you have a date with Brody tomorrow. What happened to not dating the guys you work with?” The bite in his tone didn’t go unnoticed.
“We don’t have a date. He asked if I wanted to learn to surf.”
“Trust me, doll, in his mind, it’s a date.”
“It is not.” She pushed the play button, and they ate their ice cream in silence. She was annoyed with the possibility that Brody had misconstrued her acceptance of his offer to teach her to surf. Brody was hot, funny, and nice, but even during their short conversation she could see that he was the kind of guy who floated from one thing to the next—surf instructor this summer, traveling with a band last winter. She loved to have fun, but at her core she was a small-town girl who liked stability. Plus, she didn’t want to go out with anyone she worked with.
Her appetite gone, she set her bowl on the table and sat back to watch the show, mulling over what Dean had said. “Do you really think he believes it’s a date?”
“Guys think differently than girls. In his mind it’s a date, regardless of what you want to call it.”
She tucked her feet beside her on the cushion, stifling a yawn as the last twenty-four hours caught up with her. “Well, I’ll just have to make it clear tomorrow that it’s not a date.”
Dean placed his empty bowl beside hers and put an arm around her shoulder, pulling her against his side. “Let me know if you have any trouble.”
“Thanks. But I’ve got this. Telling guys what I think has never been my problem.”
“I like that about you.”
“Because you’re not dating me,” she said honestly.
“That wouldn’t make a difference, doll. I like who you are, and that doesn’t change because two people become a couple.”
She shifted so she could see his face, and it was as serious as ever. The longer she looked at him, the softer his expression became. And when she smiled, a slow smile lifted his lips, smoothing the remaining serious edges.
“That’s a good thing, roomie,” she said, “because I like who you are, too.”
They fell into comfortable silence as they watched the show. Dean’s fingers moved in an intoxicating pattern up and down her arm, lulling her worries away. It turned out all his ridiculously large muscles weren’t hard as stone. His chest was firm, but cushiony enough to use as a pillow, and his arm was heavy around her, practically crushing her against his side, but it felt good to be embraced by the man who had literally brought a smile to her face every day for months on end.
By the middle of the second episode, Tango and Cash were curled up beside her, purring as they slept, and she was struggling to keep her eyes open, but too engrossed in the show to want to stop watching. After watching shows together from hundreds of miles apart while video chatting, she was enjoying finally spending time—and cuddling up—with Dean in person, like best friends should. For weeks she’d wondered if their friendship would change once she moved here and they were no longer restricted to long-distance phone calls. If after being reunited with Desiree, she and Dean would drift further apart. Even after only a day she knew their friendship had already changed. It was more real than ever.
As she lay against him, safe and comfortable, she realized that it hadn’t been Desiree she’d thought of first thing this morning, even though she hadn’t lived in the same area as her for ages. It was Dean. In fact, it hadn’t been Desiree for a very long time.
THERE WAS PROBABLY some sort of sin wrapped up in allowing himself to soak in every second of this closeness with Emery, but it was worth it. Dean was acutely aware of her every breath, of the way her body relaxed into his and of her hand resting on his thigh. How many nights had he longed to hold her? Watching her on a screen didn’t come close to being able to feel her in his arms and brush his cheek over the top of her head, enjoying the feel of her silky hair against his skin, the scent of her shampoo.
This was so damn good.
A fantasy.
Literally.
She was a friend resting in his arms. She wasn’t his in the way he wanted her to be.
Not yet, anyway.
He ran his fingers along her arm from her bracelets to her elbow. Her skin was just as soft as he’d imagined, and he told himself this would have to be enough until he could figure out how to convince Emery that what had happened with the so-called friends she’d dated in the past would not happen between them. Their friendship would turn into something more—into everything more. How could it not? He had no idea how she could be oblivious to the thrum of heat between them. He’d dated Diana Longhorn, his father’s business partner’s daughter, for about six months, and he’d never felt for her what he felt for Emery a month after knowing her long-distance. Emery was everything the women he’d dated weren’t. She was spontaneous, unfiltered, and so full of life, she was like the brightest of lights on the darkest of nights, outshining everyone and everything around her. He’d never met anyone so enthralling—or so infuriating—and it didn’t matter how long it took, he wasn’t about to give up on showing her how great they could be together.
“We got so sidetracked with Brody,” Emery said, pulling him from his thoughts. “I forgot to tell you that I saw my office at the resort. It’s perfect, and I love the color.”
Of course you do. It’s buttercup, your favorite. He wondered if she even remembered telling him that. He was mesmerized by her sleepy, breathy voice and her slightly Southern drawl as she told him about how, on Desiree’s recommendation, she’d designed flyers for her yoga practice while she was at the inn earlier and planned to put them out at local stores later in the week.
“I wish I knew where to go, but Des said just to hit every store along the main drag. That’s what they did for their shop. She already has tons of signups for next week when I start teaching, so I don’t even know how much promoting I need to do. But it can’t hurt, right?”
“I’ll drive you around and show you the most likely places where you’ll get clients, if you’d like.”
“Don’t you have to work?”
“Let me worry about that.” There were perks to being his own boss, and one of them was taking as much time as he wanted with Emery.
She relaxed against his lap again, and they watched the rest of the episode in silence. When it came to an end, he noticed that Emery’s eyes were nearly closed. Moving slowly, so as not to jostle her, he used the remote to turn off the television.
She started. “Hey!”
Tango lifted his head. Cash opened one eye, watching them as if they bored him.
“You’re half asleep, doll. We can watch tomorrow.”
“I am not.” She sat up, blinking excessively, as if that would make her appear less exhausted. Tango and Cash repositioned themselves, watching Emery. Tango patted her leg with his paw. Emery stroked his head and said, “We can’t stop now. The very definition of binge-watching is to watch so many episodes your eyes cross.”
He chuckled. How many times had she nearly fallen asleep while they were Skyping and watching movies, only to get upset when he suggested they end the call so she could go to bed? She was a funny one, this sweet, feisty woman he adored.
“Okay,” he agreed. “One more episode, but you need to lie down before you fall over.” He set a pillow on his lap and patted it.
“Two more episodes,” she said rebelliously, and lay down on her side with her head on the pillow. He covered her with a throw blanket from the back of the couch, and she wiggled closer, sighing as the kitties curled up beside her. “Why can’t dates be just like this? It’s perfect.”
They can be was on the tip of his tongue. But Emery had just moved into his guest room, she was coming off a bad date, and she was half asleep. Now was not the time for him to bare his soul. Instead, he ran his hand along her back, trying to think of an innocuous response that would comfort her. He was pretty sure telling her she was dating assholes was the wrong thing to say. He tried to concentrate on the show, but his brain wasn’t on board with the plan. He couldn’t silence the debate going on in his head between telling her how he felt and risking it all, or letting it ride for…what? Another day? A week? A month? The thought killed him.
She made a dreamy sound and wrapped her arms around his legs, hugging them tight. Hope climbed up his chest. Maybe she already knew how he felt. He leaned forward so he could see her face—and she was fast asleep. For some reason that warmed him to his core.
He stroked her hair, glad she’d finally allowed herself to rest. He let her sleep, listening to the even cadence of her breathing and reveling in how nice it felt to be together, even if only as friends. For now.
Afraid to wake her, he left the television on, and after the episode ended, he lifted her into his arms. She wound her arms around his neck in her sleep. He carried her through the dark house to her bedroom with Tango and Cash by his side. Moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating her luggage and the piles of clothes still littering her bed.
“Only you, doll,” he whispered with a smile, and carried her to his bedroom.
He pulled the covers back and laid her in his bed. She made another sleepy noise as he pulled his blankets up around her. Cash jumped onto the bed and curled up behind her, and Tango followed.
Dean wanted to be next in line, but he knew better. Instead, he brushed a kiss over Emery’s forehead and whispered, “Night, doll. Sleep well.”
“Love you, Dean” came out breathy and slow, the way it often did when they ended their phone calls, but hearing it in person hit him square in the center of his chest.
He stilled, his heart hammering as he searched her face. But her eyelids didn’t flutter, and her lips didn’t curve up in a smile. She’d said it in her sleep.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, telling himself to get a fucking grip, and quietly collected running clothes for the morning. He’d need a long-ass run after what was sure to be a sleepless night knowing she was just a few feet away in his bed. This wasn’t quite how he’d pictured it in his fantasies. He closed the curtains and took one last, adoring look at Emery before heading out to the couch for the night.