#SonOfABumblebee

Spence opened his eyes when Colbie’s phone went off with multiple texts in quick succession.

Facedown on his bed, sated and still panting, she just groaned. “I’m going to kill them,” she muttered into the mattress. “Unless they’re in jail. If they’re in jail, I’m going to leave them there.” She sighed. “But I really hope they’re not in jail.”

“Hey.” He turned her face to him, not liking the worry and guilt in her eyes. “They’re legal adults. For that matter, so is your mom. You’re not responsible for them.”

“I know. But it’s the life I’ve made. I take care of them. Always have.”

Ever since her dad had left. It was her ugly past rearing its head and oh how he understood that.

“Maybe it’s time to make a life for you,” he said.

She shrugged. “The thing is, when the writing’s good, I’m happy. I really don’t need much more than that. The truth is, I’m fine with my life because I’m naturally introverted and actually pretty boring.”

“Introverted, maybe a little. But boring?” Spence gently tugged on a loose wayward strand of her silky hair, dipping a little to look into her eyes. “Never.”

“I am,” she said on a laugh.

“Honey, the woman in my bed is the furthest thing from boring I’ve ever seen.”

She blushed a little. It was cute. She snorted too. Also cute. “That was all you,” she said, poking him in the chest.

“No.” He caught her hand. “I’ve been with just me.” He shook his head and laughed. “Trust me. You’re the necessary ingredient and wild card.” Utterly true. And something else he hadn’t seen coming—she’d distracted the hell out of him but he’d still managed to work, disproving his theory that he was all work and no play.

Which wasn’t even the biggest problem. Nope, that honor went to the fact that she was leaving soon, something he wasn’t ready to face.

Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “As it turns out,” she said softly, “you’re my necessary ingredient too. I’ve been writing like I haven’t been able to in . . . forever. You unblocked me.”

He smiled and lifted her onto his lap so that she was straddling him. “So I’m your muse, huh?”

She slid her fingers into his hair and he nearly purred like a cat. “It would seem,” she murmured.

“Well then, by all means feel free to use me anytime you need, creatively or otherwise,” he said.

She wriggled a little, giving out a soft hum of what he hoped was pleasure as she felt him harden beneath her. “Now?” she whispered, the excitement unmistakable in her voice.

“Now.”

Spence was wrapped in warm, sated woman and feeling pretty damn good about the evening as he dozed off, when suddenly Colbie stirred and murmured his name.

It was one a.m. and she’d been out for at least thirty minutes. He’d put her into a pleasure coma and it’d made him feel more than a little smug. He stroked a hand down her back. “You okay?”

“Who’s Brandon?” she asked, voice thick with sleep. “I meant to ask that before but you distracted me.”

“He’s an old college roommate.”

“And . . .?” she asked, running a finger over his chest, an unbelievably soothing touch.

“. . . And,” he said, “he’s also someone I stupidly gave an interview to when he asked.”

“Hmm . . .” Her fingers danced lightly over his ribs and abs, which he liked way too much. “I take it that the interview didn’t go well,” she said.

“He works for a tech magazine and he needed a story. I agreed, as long as the article was business only, nothing personal. He promised.”

“And then . . . he broke the promise?” she asked, her hand stilling.

“He gave my life story,” Spence said. “Most of it pieced together from what he knew of me in college, the rest from gossip he’d dug up.”

“Ah,” she said. “And the next thing you knew, you were on San Fran’s most eligible bachelor list, getting marriage proposals via texts with NSFW pics to go with,” she guessed.

He groaned, which got a smile out of his bedmate. “Well you are pretty eligible . . .” she teased.

He sighed and she laughed, but it faded as she slid her hand up his chest to cup his jaw, her eyes sympathetic now and full of understanding. “I get it,” she said. “No one’s built for this kind of public scrutiny.”

The thought that she understood him should’ve been comforting, but it wasn’t.

Because in one week she’d be gone . . .

“He had no right to do that,” she said, “to play on your friendship. I haven’t known you very long, but even I know that your privacy is super important to you. He shouldn’t have asked you for the interview in the first place.”

“And now he wants a follow-up interview.”

“I hope you told him where he could put it,” she said, voice tight with anger for him.

That she was worked up over this for him was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. He covered her hand on his chest with his own. “I did tell him.”

“But it still sucks,” she guessed. “So . . . how can I make you feel better?”

He slowly nudged her hand southbound.

Colbie laughed. Her eyes were that dark jade green they got when she was unbearably aroused and she reared up so that her mouth could brush against his, her lips soft and sweet. When her tongue touched his, his control snapped and he moved his hand to the back of her neck, closing his mouth over hers, drinking her in.

He should’ve been sated, but the kiss was deep and going deeper by the second. Her hands were running over his body, stopping at all his favorite parts. Ripping his mouth free, he rested his forehead against hers for a few seconds, listening to the both of them breathe like lunatics.

“This is a little bit insane,” she whispered.

“Completely insane.”

“I think about you too much,” she admitted.

“Yeah?” He buried his fingers in her hair and met her gaze. “What do you think about?”

“This. You.”

His heart skipped a few beats at the longing he saw in her face. He pressed her into the bed, needing to feel as much of his body covering hers as possible. He shuddered as her long legs wrapped around him, and he captured her lips in another mind-bending kiss, drinking in the little noises she made deep in her throat.

Then she pulled back, studying him, and he wondered what the hell she saw when she looked at him like that, like maybe he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. Which was gratifying since he was starting to come to terms with the fact that he felt the same. She was definitely the best thing to ever happen to him.

Something he thought about every morning when he dragged himself out of her bed and left her before she woke and saw it all over his face.

As he thought this and let it sink in, it suddenly took everything he had to not tell her. But he wanted her to be the one to make the decision about where to take things next, if they took things anywhere at all. He was starting to realize what his feelings were, but she needed to do the same—in her own time.

He thought maybe he’d see it in her eyes, but he wanted the words, and then, as if she could read his mind, she opened her mouth—but what came out wasn’t anything he expected.

“Oh my God, wait!” she gasped and wriggled out from beneath him.

“What’s wrong?”

“I forgot!” She sat up. “I forgot to tell you something. I can’t believe I forgot but there were the brownies and then you naked . . .” She tugged the sheet up to her chin. “Sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Since her voice was very serious and also very panicked and he couldn’t see enough in the dark room to suit him, he reached across her and turned on the small lamp by his bed.

She’d been wearing a soft, warm glow when she’d first drifted off but right now her eyes were wide, dark, and full of haunting secrets.

Shit.

With his gut sinking hard, he watched her slide out of bed and grab the first thing she came to on the floor.

His shirt.

It looked good on her, falling to her thighs, open to expose a strip of creamy skin he knew tasted like heaven. He caught a glimpse of some whisker burn between her breasts and low on her belly before she yanked the shirt closed and started buttoning herself in.

“I’m really so very sorry,” she said, head bowed to her task, her fingers fumbling. “I meant to tell you before we . . .”

Because her fingers were shaking, he got up and moved her hands aside, first undoing what she’d done since she’d lined the buttons up to the wrong holes, before starting anew. As the backs of his knuckles brushed over her flesh, she trembled.

Which killed him. What the ever-loving hell?

When she was buttoned from throat to thigh, he let out a breath and stepped back and pulled on his jeans. “What is it?” he asked quietly.

She chewed her bottom lip. A tell. She did it whenever she was trying to hide an emotion, be it humor, arousal, or in this case, dismay.

“Okay,” she said. “But I want you to know that I promised myself I’d tell you before we . . . we were intimate again. I was going to tell you tonight at dinner, only . . .”

“You ate brownies instead, got high, and then jumped my bones.”

He meant for her to smile, but she didn’t. She looked unsure of herself, kind of the same way she’d looked right after Daisy Duke had sent her swimming. It’d melted his damn heart then, and it did so now, even if he didn’t want it to.

“I may have left you with the wrong impression of who I am and what I do,” she said and hugged herself.

He stared at her and then sank to the bed. “Tell me you’re not a reporter.”

“No.” She paused. “It’s . . . worse.”

Shit. Elle had been right, and oh how she was going to love that. “I need a minute.”

“Now?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head and got to his feet, walking out of his bedroom. Only there wasn’t enough air in the living room either, so he went out the front door with the intention of going up to the roof, where he could sit in peace and quiet on the ledge and stare out at the world until he felt his blood pressure come back down from stroke level.

But he’d forgotten his keys.

Instead of going back inside his place, he pounded the elevator button with enough force to hurt his finger. It opened immediately. He stepped on and hit the basement floor.

Twenty seconds later, he walked into the large room and halted an ongoing poker game. Sitting at the table were Elle, Caleb, Joe, Archer, Finn, and Pru.

They were all smoking cigars, the ones that Luis—Trudy’s three-time husband—had brought back from his trip to Cuba.

The entire table froze at the sight of Spence. Finally, Archer pulled the cigar from his mouth and jabbed it at Finn, sitting across from him. “Hey, remember the time you came out of the dumbwaiter with that same look on your face?” He jerked a thumb at the wall behind him, where the dumbwaiter door was currently closed. “Only you were in just your skivvies.”

Pru grimaced. “That was my bad. I shoved him in the dumbwaiter after we—”

Finn grinned when she broke off. “Oh, do finish that sentence,” he told her. “But make sure and tell them how I rocked your world—”

“I just needed a minute to think,” Pru said, blushing. “I never thought you’d end up down here. And besides, this is about Spence, hello! He’s standing there in just his jeans. Where are the rest of his clothes?”

All heads swiveled back to Spence.

“Tell me you just got some,” Joe said.

Elle went brows up in question.

Spence ignored them both. “It’s freezing down here. Someone give me a jacket.”

“Maybe you’re freezing because your button fly’s undone,” Pru said casually and laid out her cards. “Flush.”

“I’ve got a royal flush,” Elle said.

Everyone groaned while Spence buttoned up his Levi’s.

Pru sighed at her loss. “Damn. Well, back to Spence. Does he have another hickey?”

Spence slapped a hand to his neck.

“Bite marks, because sometimes it’s important to mark your territory,” Archer said.

Elle smiled and blew him a kiss as she gathered up her winnings. She scooped it all into her bag before pushing back from the table and moving across the floor to the far end of the room. Next to the washers and dryers was a closet. She pulled it open and rifled around in there before coming back toward Spence, holding out something pink.

“From the lost and found,” she said. “It’s only a medium, but that’s the best I’ve got.”

“It says Princess on it.” The cold concrete floor was seeping up through his bare feet and he was shivering, but he stared at the sweatshirt dubiously.

“Put it on,” Joe said. “Your nipples could cut glass.”

Spence shot him a look that threatened death and Joe mercifully shut up. Not, Spence knew, because he actually feared death, but because Spence had stuff on the guy. He’d kept Joe’s secrets but he wasn’t feeling all that charitable at the moment.

Elle waggled the pink sweatshirt.

Swearing, Spence pulled the damn thing on. It was too short in the arms and bared a strip of his stomach, and he felt like an idiot, albeit a slightly warmer idiot. He needed to get back upstairs, because no matter what Colbie had to say, he’d been a real dick for walking out on her like that.

But Elle stopped him. “What happened?” she asked quietly, for his ears only. “Do I have to kill her?”

“Not discussing it.”

But Elle was like a dog with a bone. She just crossed her arms and stared at him.

He blew out a sigh. “She said she may have misled me about who she is and what she does.”

Elle stared at him. “Dammit, Spence.”

“Yeah, you were right—not something you’re going to hear every day, so don’t get used to it.”

She refused to let him joke this away. “So you . . . bailed.”

“Yeah.”

“After you slept with her,” she said.

“Actually, there was very little sleeping involved.”

Elle shook her head. “Why can’t men think with two body parts at the same time? Is it in your blood? Is it just in the genes? What?”

“Actually, it’s a combo,” Archer said from the table with his superhuman hearing. “Don’t blame us—we’re born this way.”

Spence rolled his eyes and started to head out but Joe stood up.

“Hey, man,” he said. “Take my spot. I’m going to bed.”

“Because he’s losing,” Caleb said.

Joe pointed at him. “Just for that, I’m staying.”

Spence shook his head. He couldn’t stay. Although . . . by now Colbie was surely long gone from his apartment and the thought of going back up there to an empty place made him feel . . . colder. “I don’t have any money on me.”

Elle sat back down at the table, in Archer’s lap, leaving her seat open for Spence. “I think I can spot you,” she said, pouring them all another round of what looked like Jameson.

“We’re not supposed to play together,” Spence reminded her, reaching over and taking Joe’s shot, which went down nice and smooth. “We ruin it for the others.”

Elle poured him another shot. “And?”

And . . . Spence thought about what was waiting for him upstairs. An empty apartment and way too many mocking memories, both of which would make him sad. Not to mention the consequences of his actions and Colbie’s emotions over being deserted before she could tell him whatever it was she needed to tell him.

But he wasn’t ready, and self-preservation kept him right where he was. Knowing that it was a complete dick move and utterly unable to save himself, he accepted the fact that he was a selfish asshole, tossed back shot number two, and blew out a breath. “Deal me in.”

It was four in the morning by the time Spence got back upstairs, a little drunk and three hundred bucks richer. Either Elle had been off her game or she’d felt sorry for him. In either case, the money in his pocket weighed him down and made his pants sag.

He didn’t really want to go home and face the apology he owed Colbie, or his empty bed. Nor did he want to think about her not being whom she’d represented herself as—because when he wasn’t drunk anymore, that one was really going to hurt.

A lot.

But right now, the Jameson had presented him with a nice cushy buffer. He walked into his place and then stopped short because it smelled amazing, like someone had just cooked up a mountain of bacon. He turned on the light in his living room and stared in shocked surprise as Colbie unfurled herself from his couch and stood, looking a bit unsure of herself. “Hey.”

He held on to the doorjamb. “You . . . cooked?”

“Just bacon. Found it in your freezer. I saved you some but then I got pissed and ate it.” She shook her head. “I really should’ve left after you did, but I wanted to talk to you and thought you’d be right back.”

“Colbie—”

“No.” She put a finger in his face, nearly taking out an eye. “You didn’t come right back and that’s when I realized. I was the mature one.” She let out a hollow laugh. “God, if only you knew how funny that was. I’m pissed off, Spence, and I’m going to spell it out for you because you’re just dense enough to not get it unless I do.”

He opened his mouth and then closed it again but chances were, she was right.

“You’ve been telling me it’s a good thing we only have three weeks together because you’re not capable of more, blah blah. I didn’t want to believe it but you proved it to me by leaving my bed after sex each night before I woke up.” She was hands on hips now, her hair practically crackling from the spark of her temper.

And she wasn’t done.

“I thought that what I had to tell you might change things,” she said. “Might show you that if I of all people could open up to you, then maybe you could open up right back, but then you ran away for a couple of hours.” She looked at his pink sweatshirt. “I’m not even going to ask where you’ve been for hours getting drunk while I was waiting on a grown-up conversation. I’m just going to tell you my truth whether you want to hear it or not.”

He put his hands in his pockets rather than reach for her, which was exactly what he wanted to do seeing her all soft and sleepy—even as his stomach clenched over what was coming next.

“First,” she said, “I’ll apologize for not telling you sooner. But I thought we were both on the same page with our limited time restraint. And then when I realized I was aching for more and had to tell you the truth about me, I mistakenly thought it might change things, but now I see that you were honest with me—you really aren’t capable of more.” She took a deep breath. “Have you heard of the Storm Fever series?”

He blinked at the quick subject change, his thought processes more than a little impeded by the alcohol. “Uh . . . the movie doesn’t come out until next week.”

“I know. I’ve already seen the movie. I got a special preview a month ago.” She paused, and he couldn’t figure out why they were talking about this when—

“I wrote the books,” she said. “I’m CE Crown.”

His brain was having trouble connecting the dots. “You’re not Colbie Albright?”

“I am. But I write under the pseudonym CE Crown.”

He paused. This wasn’t what he’d expected, although he couldn’t have said what he did expect.

She was watching his reaction very carefully. Only he wasn’t sure what his reaction was supposed to be. Hell, he wasn’t sure of anything at the moment, other than he was wearing a way-too-small pink sweatshirt that pronounced him a princess.

“I came to San Francisco because I’ve been having trouble writing,” she said. “I was hoping to pull myself out of my rut.” She gave a small smile. “Which did happen.” She paused, looking even more unsure of herself now as she met his gaze. “I didn’t intend to tell anyone who I was. It’s not this huge secret or anything, I just wanted to get away from my crazy life and all the responsibility for a bit and find the joy in writing again. But I just . . . It didn’t feel right not telling you anymore. After the past two weeks with you, I wanted you to know the truth. Especially after we . . .” She looked toward the bedroom. “You know.”

Struck dumb by her news, which was nothing even close to what he might have imagined, he nodded inanely.

“So.” She clasped her hands together. “Now you know my big, dark secret.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she mirrored back softly, and then headed for the door. She lifted her gaze to his and searched his eyes once more. There were more questions there, questions she clearly wanted to ask, but after a long hesitation she didn’t. “I was feeling really bad for misleading you,” she said instead. “But I’m not feeling bad anymore. Especially since the truth is that I wanted you to know me as myself, as Colbie Albright, not CE Crown. That’s all anyone sees these days when they look at me. But CE Crown isn’t real. I’m real.”

At that, his chest suddenly felt too tight and it wasn’t the damn sweatshirt. “Colbie, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry I vanished on you.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Her eyes were shiny bright when she turned away and walked out the door.

It took him a beat to acknowledge that either he was having a heart attack or the sweatshirt was just that tight. “You really are an idiot,” he told himself and started to go after her. But then he caught sight of himself in the foyer mirror and stopped short.

Wow. Not only was the sweatshirt pink with Princess on it, it was bedazzled. And here he’d thought it couldn’t get worse. He ripped it off over his head, tossed it aside, and then headed out. He took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on Colbie’s door.

No answer. He knew it was late. No, scratch that, it was early, very early, but he knocked again anyway, slightly harder.

Mrs. Winslow from 3D stuck her head out her door. She took in the sight of Spence standing there in just his Levi’s and nothing else and put a hand to her heart. “Oh my saints alive.”

“I’m sorry,” Spence said. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Mrs. Winslow tilted her head up to the ceiling. “Nice work,” she whispered.

Spence sighed and turned back to Colbie’s door.

“Even better from the back,” Mrs. Winslow said.

Spence closed his eyes and thunked his head on Colbie’s door. “Go back to bed, Mrs. Winslow.”

He heard her door shut. But what he didn’t hear was Colbie opening hers. He could feel her though, just on the other side of the wood. “Look,” he said. “Clearly I was telling you the truth when I said I was bad with women. I don’t know jack about making them happy or keeping them.”

Nothing.

“Colbie, open up so I can apologize properly. You deserve that much at least.”

More nothing.

He decided to try to appeal to her warm, nurturing side, hoping she wouldn’t be able to resist. “My feet are cold,” he said.

And bingo, she opened the door to reveal two females staring at him, one human, one feline. He quickly stepped into the human one, nudging her back so he could get inside.

“Maybe I didn’t want to let you in,” Colbie said a little pissily.

“Yeah, well, right back at ya, honey.”