I'm lying on her bed, still wrapped in a towel and reading her novel, when Delaney comes out of the bathroom. Before I can even make a comment about the book, she's snatched it out of my hand.
"Why are you reading this?"
"Because it was sitting on your pillow."
"So you thought that was an invite?" She's shoving it in her desk drawer, hiding it away, I suppose with good reason because that book was pretty fucking dirty. I knew Delaney had a wild side to her.
"An invite is me telling you to sit on my face," I say. "You leaving your dirty books lying around just means anyone can pick them up and read them."
"It's not a dirty book," she says.
"Really?" I ask, getting up and rushing toward her desk. She lunges back toward the desk, going for the desk drawer, but she misses, and I pull the book out, flipping open to one of the pages. Delaney jumps up, one hand holding the towel around her breasts. Honestly, the only reason I even hold the book out of her reach is because I want her to lose the towel. I read from the book: "Brayden thrust his throbbing manhood into her slick channel of love. Holy shit, what the fuck is a channel of love?"
"Stop. Seriously!" Delaney reaches one more time for the book, and I slip my finger under the edge of her towel, watching it fall to the ground. Then, satisfied, I return the book back to her. She groans her frustration, and when she bends over to pick up her towel, I make sure to get an ass-smack in.
"Goddamn, I'm not going to get tired of slapping you on the ass like that," I say.
When she stands up, her eyes are flashing. "What the hell was that for?" she asks. "You really are twelve years old, aren't you?"
"You liked it before."
"That was different," she says, bringing the towel back up around her, but I wrench it away from her.
"Stay naked," I tell her. "I like you uncovered better." It's true. Shit, this girl makes me wound up, just looking at that curvy ass and tits. I'm not sure what the hell I'm still doing in her room, except that I don't want to stop touching her. Not yet.
Delaney squirms away, grabbing the towel from me and wrapping herself up again. As if I didn't just have my hands all over that naked body of hers. As if I weren't just inside her.
She sits down against the pillows on the bed, setting her book on the bedside table. "Do you think our parents are home?"
I shrug. "Who cares?"
"You don't think they heard anything, do you?"
"In this house?" I ask. "No. Are you worried?"
"Aren't you?"
"Nope," I say, lying down beside her on the bed. "Not in the least."
"Your boot is off," she says.
"You're just noticing that shit now?" I ask. "Seriously?"
"I noticed before," she says. "But that was upstairs when we were…"
"Fucking?"
"You have a way of making everything sound so….crude."
"Sorry," I say, but I'm not. "I'll say making love instead."
Delaney giggles. "Oh my God, I think I'm going to vomit."
"Make loooooovvvve," I say, dragging out the words, my voice sickly sweet. "That's what that novel of yours would say, wouldn't it? I'd make love to you with my throbbing manhood?"
"Stop," she says, rolling her eyes as she swats me on the arm.
"Hey, I'm not the one reading it," I say.
"At least I can read," she says. I make a meowing sound and a pawing gesture at her, and she sticks out her tongue at me. "What are you doing here, anyway? Don't you want to go back to your room?"
"And miss out on the chance to bug you?" I ask.
"Seriously," she says. "Isn't that your thing? Casual sex?"
"Yeah, so what?"
"Doesn't that involve not hanging around afterward?"
"Delaney Marlowe, are you treating me like a one night stand?" I ask, putting my hand on my chest. "I'm hurt." Okay, I'm being sarcastic, but I am kind of surprised. I mean, come on, usually I'm the one who's out the door as soon as I can get away with it afterward, but Delaney's acting like she's the one who wants me gone. I'm more annoyed than hurt.
"That's what this is, isn't it?" she says. "I mean, upstairs….and, um, in the shower, that can't happen again, Gaige."
"So when you handle me in Japan, you're not going to handle me," I say. "Is that what you're saying?"
Delaney blushes. Score one for me. "Absolutely not," she says, her voice firm. "This cannot happen again, Gaige. We're going to be under scrutiny in Japan and I'm representing the company there. So are you. There would be so much blowback if that –"
"Yeah, yeah, got it," I say, cutting her off. Leave it to Delaney to be wound so tight when it comes to stupid company policies.
"This can't leave this room, Gaige," she says, her voice panicked. "Promise me."
I turn toward her, swallowing my irritation. "Trust me, sweetheart, I have no interest in anyone else finding out about this."
For a second, I think the expression that flits across her face is hurt or disappointment, but it's gone so quickly I can't be sure. "Exactly," she says quickly.
"So we'll agree. It will just be one night."
"Right."
"Then it won't hurt to do it again, will it?" I ask. "I mean, one night, right? It's best to get everything out of your system."
She rolls over onto her side, facing me, her head resting on her hand. "One night and that's it. After tonight, we stop."
I nod. "Absolutely."
Like hell we're going to stop. I only just started with this girl.
"And it stays between us."
"I'm not taking an ad out in the newspaper," I say, running my hand up her thigh.
Delaney wrinkles her nose. "Do people even do newspaper ads anymore?"
"I don't care," I say, sliding my hand up farther. "Are we going to talk about newspapers, or are we going to make love?"
Delaney slaps me on the arm. "Ugh. Stop using that phrase."
I reach up to her mouth, run my thumb along her bottom lip. "Ask me nicely."
She raises her eyebrows. "I don't ask for anything nicely."
"If I recall correctly, you were begging pretty well earlier," I say. "Now you're changing your tune?"
She smiles before wrapping her lips around the tip of my finger, and all I can picture is her lips wrapped around my cock. "Too much talking," she says. "One night, remember?"
In the morning, Delaney murmurs in her sleep, incoherent nonsense words but I listen anyway. She's lying with her head on my chest, her hair splayed out all over, finally asleep after one more round of sex followed by an outrageous amount of talking about random meaningless things. It's like the sex loosened her tongue, made her punch drunk or something. It made us both that way, I guess.
Delaney was giggling, laughing at stupid shit I said while we laid in bed, kind of like she used to when we would hang out at night. Except this time, we were naked. And I wasn't trying to get in her pants anymore, because I already had.
I'd always figured that if I ever tapped Delaney Marlowe, that would be the end of it, just like the way it worked with every other chick I'd ever met. The chase is everything – it's the aftermath that I can't fucking stand.
But with Delaney, I don't want to leave. So I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of her, filing it away in my memory bank. Just in case she's serious about this being a one night stand.
She finally stirs, rolling over onto her stomach to look at me, her expression satiated, at least until she registers it's me. Then it changes to a look of panic. "You're still here," she whispers.
"Good morning to you too, sweetheart."
"What time is it?"
I glance over at the alarm clock on the table. "Eight."
"Eight?" she asks, sitting bolt upright. "Shit. I have to jump in the shower. Chelsea will have my ass if I walk into work late. Didn't my alarm go off?"
"Yeah, but you looked so comfortable, I didn't want to wake you."
"Damn it, Gaige." She slides out of bed and runs in the bathroom to turn on the shower before she comes back out. "How the hell are you going to sneak out of here?"
"I thought I'd lounge around in your bed naked until the housekeeper came in to clean, and then I'd tell her the whole story of what happened between us last night."
Delaney's eyes go wide. "I swear to God, Gaige, if you don't get out of here…"
"Relax, sweetheart," I say, not bothering to hide the edge to my voice. This isn't how I fucking pictured this morning going at all. "I think you need to postpone that shower. A little morning sex would significantly improve your mood." I toss back the covers and gesture toward my cock.
"One night, Gaige," she says. "That's it, remember?"
"Did we say one night or one day?" I ask. "Because if it was one day, then technically we still have until tonight. Twenty-four hours."
Delaney sighs. Why do I love the sound she makes when she's exasperated with me? I shouldn't love it as much as I do, but getting under her skin is thrilling. It's like foreplay. "One night, Gaige. One night and that's it. How are you going to sneak out of here?"
I slide out of bed, crossing the room to where she stands, naked. Usually women, at least the kind of women I hook up with, look worse for wear in the morning. But not Delaney. She looks better than she did last night, standing here with her hair tousled, a smudge of mascara under her eyes, a fresh flush on her cheeks.
Don't even get me started on that fucking body of hers.
I run my palm over her waist and the side of her curvy hips, before moving it between her legs. "Instead of me sneaking out of here, why don't you let me lick you again?"
Delaney inhales so sharply that it's audible in the room, even over the white noise of the shower. "I have to shower."
"It can wait."
She pries her hand away from where it rests between her legs. "Our parents will be awake."
"Your father will be at work already, and Anja's probably sleeping it off somewhere," I say.
"I'll be late."
I shrug. "Chelsea can wait," I say. I can't stop looking at her lips. They're still pink-tinged around the edges, swollen from my kisses, and I kiss her again, lightly, but she turns her head away, touching her fingers to her lips.
"I have morning breath," she says.
I tilt her head up to me. "I don't care."
"Gaige, don't," she whispers. "Please."
She turns and walks into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her. And shutting me out. Just like that.