Chapter 9

Saturday morning was rough, thanks in no small part to the drinking game Molly had come up with the night before. Every time the camera zoomed in when a new length of yarn slipped free of the ball for what Molly called “the money shot,” they had to drink. Sean had only planned to force ten minutes of the yarn porn on them, but then there’d be another infraction, and they’d had to add more to the tally. It had been a long night, and at its end, Sean knew more about the value of maintaining a steady tension than he’d ever wanted to.

And waking up to a cacophony of ringing phones, pinging texts, repetitive buzzing from the intercom, and then incessant hammering at the front door hadn’t been his favorite way to meet the day. Molly’s either, considering the bleary-eyed scowl on her face when he’d run into her stumbling for the door.

“It’s after ten.” Emily laughed, shaking her head as if Sean was crazy for demanding to know what she and Jase were thinking, barging in on them at the crack of dawn. “And we made plans last night, right?”

The hell they had.

Jase at least had the good grace to keep his eyes trained on the far corner of the ceiling as his leggy wife strutted into the apartment like she owned the place.

“Oh, you know what?” She stopped and looked from Molly to Sean, one finger tapping her chin. “You guys might have already left when we decided to do breakfast. Well, you’re always up for anything, so you don’t mind, right? I mean, we shopped, and Brody said he’d cook, even though he thinks you need a new cooktop.”

Jesus, apparently Emily wasn’t going to stop talking until they just gave up.

“Jase, baby, you want to unload this stuff over on the counters? Just move the beer bottles. Wow, looks like you guys had a good time,” she stated, her eyes glinting expectantly as she again looked from Molly back to him.

Ahh. Now he got it.

And Molly must have too. “Okay,” she mumbled through a yawn. “You’re trying to figure out if Sean nailed me.”

Sean cut her a look. “Way to cheapen it.”

The corner of her mouth kicked up as she padded into the kitchen and pulled a can of coffee from the cabinet. “Sorry. I meant that Em was trying to figure out if you made sweet, sweet love to me.”

Emily’s hands clasped beneath her chin, and she bounced in place. “Yes! That’s what I want to know. Tell me you did.” Turning that laser stare on Sean, she did that whisper-at-full-volume thing, pleading, “Please tell me you were waiting for her when she went after you, and then you kind of caught her up against you and kissed her with everything you’ve been holding back for…for, what, like twelve years?”

Sean was about to cut in when Brody’s voice boomed from the front of the apartment. “Better not have been that long. Max’d tear your head off if he found out you’ve been after his little sister since she was fifteen.”

Head dropping, Sean prayed for patience. But on the next breath, he smelled something even better. “Coffee?”

“Got you covered, my man,” Brody said, stopping beside him with two carriers filled with hot, steamy goodness. “Front right is yours.”

Molly had shoved the canister away and was biting her lip as she moved in for her cup. “Brody, I take back all the terrible things I tell people at work about you.”

He answered with a gruff laugh and passed Em and Jase theirs before taking the last cup for himself. There was a moment of silence, followed by a round of low appreciative moans. But it was the one closest to him that Sean couldn’t ignore. Molly’s eyes were closed, those dark-blond lashes dusting her cheekbones as her tongue peeked out to catch a stray bit of foam from her top lip.

He swallowed hard and stepped back a pace to get the remote from where it was resting on the back of the couch.

The TV came to life, and Molly arched a brow. “Really?”

Working hard to keep his thoughts on the blissed-out narrator channeling 1977, Sean nodded.

Molly’s eyes hazed as they ran over him. Slowly.

Fuck.

She reached behind her and grabbed the kitchen timer. When she set it on the butcher block facing him, it was set to twenty minutes.

Ten for him.

He gulped.

Ten for her.

Emily was talking again, rewinding her fantasy about events that hadn’t happened. “Okay, just tell me what happened when you guys took off. Sean looked like he was about to do physical violence to Ben when he stuck that mint in your ear.”

Okay, now she had his full attention. “What?”

“I followed you up to make sure you didn’t do anything crazy. Which you looked like you were about to do. But then you just…left. And I went back down to the party.”

Sean turned to Molly, who was looking at him. He rolled his eyes as if Emily was making more of it than there had been. She wasn’t.

Molly walked over to Emily and, gently rubbing her arms, broke the news. “Sorry, Emily. There was no sweet, sweet lovemaking. We just needed to talk and let things get back to normal.”

Emily looked to Sean, obviously hoping he’d call Molly a bald-faced liar. “Sorry, Em.”

Brody was separating egg whites over at the counter. “So gotta ask. What’s with the yarn work? I didn’t think you were the crafty type, Moll.”

She grinned. “I’m not. Sean’s trying out a few new stress-management techniques.”

Brat. But damn, that smile on her when she knew she’d gotten him good. “Add another ten to the clock, Moll.”

The smile she flashed him made him feel like he’d just been thanked for paying her a compliment. So he gave her a wink before turning to Brody. “It’s negative conditioning. When we get a case of inappropriate thoughts, we add ten minutes to the clock. This show is brutal. We’ll be past this stuff in no time.”

Jase rubbed at the back of his neck and looked to his wife. “I told you they were idiots.”

Brow furrowed, Emily waved him aside. “So after the boner incident, you guys are suffering from a case of mutual attraction? And instead of say…giving in to it…you’re watching knitting?” When they both shrugged, she straightened, huffing out a breath. “That’s the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard. What’s the matter with you two?”

Sean turned to Molly and saw the clock was up to forty minutes now. She was sweet. “You got this?”

She nodded, pulling her hair back with one of those little elastics that were always materializing out of nowhere. “It’s not like with you and Jase, where you suddenly realized you were in love and wanted forever.”

“Well, that’s not exactly how it went down,” Emily corrected slowly.

Molly rolled her eyes. “Okay, Em, you haven’t known Sean as long as the rest of us, but I’m sure you’re familiar with his plans to land a specific quality of wife, thus ensuring a certain standard of marriage. Those plans haven’t changed, and in case it isn’t obvious, I don’t really stack up to be a future Mrs. Wyse.”

Sean was nodding—mostly because Molly was the one talking and he figured whatever it was she said, he’d be agreeing with—but as the words passed from her lips to his ears, that mindless bobble action slowed to a stop. If Molly thought the reason he didn’t consider her marriage material was because she was in some way lacking, she was dead wrong.

They’d all given him shit about his plans before, Molly more than anyone. But it had always been in the abstract or at the very least about someone other than Molly. He never thought of the girls he casually hooked up with as not being good enough. And as far as Molly went? It was because of everything she was that he wouldn’t put her through the kind of life being with him would mean. Not because of what she wasn’t.

Molly lived her life out loud. She was a free spirit, bursting with energy and excitement and laughter and love. And his life—hell, it was restrictive and locked down. His life was about being proper and polite. About remembering there was a time and a place. About presenting a public image in line with the legacy he’d been born into. His life was about business. And the idea of Molly trying to conform—trying to turn down the vibrancy that was his very fucking favorite thing about her—he’d never want that.

But hearing Molly suggest that she was somehow less than what he’d been looking for in a wife—or more specifically, than what had been drilled into his head about the kind of woman who would be an appropriate partner in the life he’d been born into—was nuts.

“I’m…I’m like an itch that’s going to go away on its own,” she was saying now. “Without getting scratched.”

“You fit into my plans, Moll,” Sean said, cutting her off. “I can’t imagine my future without you being a part of it. But I’m pretty sure the kind of marriage you’re looking for isn’t the kind just as easily referred to as an arrangement.” Hell, he wasn’t even sure it was enough for him anymore. “You’re more than that, Moll. Not less.”

He shrugged, looking at each of the guys in turn. “That’s why we’re watching yarn porn. Because what Moll and I have together, our friendship, is too important to risk screwing up with…screwing.”

Molly turned to him and cocked her head. “You say the sweetest things.”

He winked at her and got on with the impromptu brunch they’d both have preferred to sleep through. After adding another ten to the clock.

* * *

“Max, I told you already, nothing happened.” Molly sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. Cutting a look across the apartment to where Sean was heaping the leftovers from brunch onto a giant tortilla, she covered the receiver. “This is the sixth call in less than twenty-four hours.”

Sean pointed an oversize spoon filled with cold goat-cheese-and-chive scrambled eggs at her. “And who do we have to thank for that, little Miss Runs-at-the-Mouth-about-Private-Roommate-Happenings?” A glob of eggs hit the counter, and Sean scooped it up and popped it in his mouth. “Besides, I don’t want to hear it. I stopped answering after the fourth call last night.”

Grabbing a dishrag, he wiped the counter.

Man, he was the best roommate.

Max was droning on in the background about making smart choices and how she knew better than to let herself get into a situation that would leave her vulnerable. She wanted to ask if he’d forgotten that he was talking about one of his best friends but instead took a steadying breath and did what had to be done. “Max, you’re on your honeymoon for another two days. Pay attention to your bride before she decides to stamp Return to Sender on your ass and lets one of those saucy scuba guides give her a few buddy breathing lessons.”

Sean raised a brow in her direction, and she had to pinch her lips together not to laugh. Because all she was getting from the other end of the line was silence. It was low, but as Sean had said the other night, desperate times and all that.

“Okay, Moll,” Max stated, sounding uneasy enough to cause a stab of guilt. “Be good, and I’ll see you Monday night.”

“Make it Tuesday. Love you, Big Brother.” She disconnected the call and pushed up from the couch to meet Sean in the kitchen.

He’d microwaved his burrito and had the thing cradled between his hands, half of it miraculously gone already. The guy could seriously eat.

“So I think I scored us a reprieve. At least until they get back.”

“Yeah,” Sean said around another obscene bite. “And when he does, I have a feeling I’ll be looking at a sit-down with him to explain in exacting detail what my dick was doing anywhere near your no-fly zone.”

Molly waved the burrito over, because it smelled crazy good. She took a bite and then grabbed his arm so she could take another. “Oh my God, that’s even better left over than it was fresh,” she said, chewing around her words.

Sean grinned and leaned back into the counter. “We going to hear Gib play tonight?”

“You were the one worried about his sister always being there.”

He nodded and chewed some more. Then shrugged. “True, but it’d be good to get out of the apartment. Get a break from this.” He grunted, pointing to the sweater in progress on the screen. They were zooming in on some really fine cable work in a soft peach.

“Nice tension there,” Molly commented, and when Sean agreed with a considering nod, she knew he was right. “We definitely need to get out of here.”

It was starting to get kind of hot, the way he actually paid attention to the show.

Three hours later, Molly and Sean walked into the dark club, nodded once, and split up. It was almost a relief to get some space, not because she was trying to hide anything from him, but because at least if he wasn’t in her direct line of sight, there was a chance she might not have to add any more minutes to the yarn porn.

The bar where Gib was playing was one they’d been to many times and always enjoyed. It was an older place, not quite half the size of Belfast, with a worn but welcoming feel to it. Heading for the bar, she saw Jill and waved.

“I forgot you were off tonight too,” Jill chirped, greeting Molly with a hip bump before craning her head around. “Damn, no Sean? I was hoping for a few fireworks, Moll.”

This was what she got for being all open and honest with everyone. Still, it was better than that sick feeling she got when she was trying to hide things from her friends.

“Relax, he’s here.” She turned around on her stool to check out the back where the band would be playing and found Sean across the crowd. His head came up, and when their eyes met, the corner of his mouth pulled into her favorite crooked grin. “But don’t get excited about any fireworks. Our little public tiff has been resolved, and we’re back to our chummy selves.”

Jill flagged the bartender for another beer, handing hers to Molly. “Not that kind of fireworks. Please, I can watch you guys bicker any time. I’m thinking more about the sizzle-and-pop kind that ends with the authorities having to break out the fire hoses to get you apart. I mean, since they don’t have the knitting channel here at the bar.”

Molly choked on her swallow of beer, smacking the bottle down on the bar as she gaped at Jill, who was shamelessly grinning at her.

“You heard?” she coughed out.

Jill nodded back at her. “So how’s the knitting aversion-therapy thing working out so far?”

Slumping against the bar, Molly sighed. “Not as well as we’d hoped. At least from my end.” They’d been tuned into the channel for almost the entire day, and Sean had even found some app for their phones to track all the hours they’d been racking up. The only problem was that just hearing Jill mention yarn had Molly’s body reacting in ways it shouldn’t. “Honestly, I’m starting to worry the knitting thing might be reinforcing the bad behavior.”

Jill squinted at her over the top of her beer. “So you remember when I first started at Belfast and I was still trying to take off those extra pounds?”

Molly thought back and then shook her head. For as long as she’d known Jill, the girl had been giving Molly a serious case of curve envy. She couldn’t ever remember Jill looking like anything but a bombshell.

“Whatever. I was dieting, and it took months to get back to where I wanted to be. Months of fighting cravings for all the things I wanted but couldn’t have.”

Jill had her attention. “Go on.”

“So here’s the deal. When you want something—say, like a doughnut—and you keep telling yourself you can’t have it, not to even think about it, that doughnut starts taking over your world. You can’t function right because it’s there, dripping warm chocolate over your every thought.”

“Yeah.” Molly was nodding, because Sean was dripping his hotness all over her world, and if he didn’t stop, it was going to get messy.

And now she was thinking about him giving her that all-trouble smile of his as chocolate ran in a hot mess down her fingers. Fingers he was bringing to his mouth to… Dang it! “What do you do to get the doughnut out of your head?”

“Simple,” Jill said with a shrug. “Eat it.”

And this time when Molly choked, she couldn’t even blame it on the beer.

Jill was rolling her eyes now, laughing. Which was so going to cost her when Molly was putting the schedule together for the next week. “Settle, Moll. I’m not talking about the whole doughnut…but you have maybe a bite. A nibble.” Her eyes lit up. “A doughnut hole. Just enough to satisfy the craving before you go off the deep end at Dunkin’ Donuts, snarfing down a baker’s dozen in one sitting. ’Cause you know you won’t feel good about it if you do.”

Molly was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open, and if Sean happened to glance over from his end of the place, the way she looked in that moment would probably be enough to curb whatever cravings he’d been suffering on the spot. Giving her head a shake, she pushed off the stool and took another long swallow. “So, have you ever actually applied this technique to a guy? Or is this all theory?”

“Theory,” Jill admitted, then waved past her to the girls who’d just cleared the front door. “Hey, my friends are here. Good luck, and let me know how it goes.”

Pass on that. Sean might be a lot of things, but a doughnut hole wasn’t one of them.

Though as Molly started toward the end of the bar where the band was setting up in front of the small dance area, she caught sight of Gib’s sister, Amber, swaying back and forth to the overhead music while she stood much too close to Sean. The way she was nibbling at her bottom lip while she stared at him looked like she was after a bite of his doughnut.

Molly hung back a minute, waiting to see how it would unfold this time. Sean had taken her home once a few years ago and then made the mistake of doing it a second time about a year later. Now, every time their paths crossed, there was a gleam of expectation in Amber’s eyes, and she wasn’t very subtle about letting Sean know what she wanted.

Amber reached out and plucked what Molly was willing to bet her boots was a bit of nothing from Sean’s shirt. He flashed one of those charming smiles, the kind he had for the camera and visiting dignitaries, and smoothly took a step back. With the way he rolled through the women in this city, Sean could handle situations like this one in his sleep. But tonight, when his eyes came up and met hers, Molly could see pleading there. Or maybe she just wanted to, but either way, in the next blink, she was closing the distance between them, stepping into the space he had waiting for her. She hooked an arm around Sean’s waist as he slung his around her shoulders. And like that, the situation was defused, which was nice, because Amber was pretty cool, and the three of them talked a while before she left to greet a few other friends.

When she was gone, Sean leaned in close to her ear. “Thanks, Moll.”

And that warm rush of air… Add ten minutes to the log.

Slipping out of his hold, she nodded toward the worn stage, where the band was ready to play. The front man, dressed in a loose T-shirt and a pair of beat-up jeans that looked like he might have painted a house in them, started off with an introduction to the rest of the aggressively casual band members and then within minutes had the entire place rocking their bodies in time to an upbeat indie sound. They were covering the Revivalists and Big Head Todd and the Monsters, mixing new hits with old favorites. The air heated with the press of bodies in motion, and soon Molly was slick, covered in a thin layer of perspiration, her heart pounding in time with the heavy beat as she let herself go.

Eyes closed, she gave in to the pull of the music, letting her arms drift overhead. Her T-shirt crept higher on her midriff, allowing a bit of air from the overhead fan and air-conditioning to reach her warm skin.

And then he was there. Without looking, she knew it was Sean moving in time with her hips, his muscular arms wrapped loosely around her waist, the hard planes of his chest brushing against her back.

When she turned to face him, there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and she could see the roots of his sun-god hair were damp. His eyes were locked with hers, and he was wearing that half smile she’d never been able to resist. Giving herself over to the music and the moment, she reached for all that too-neat hair.

“Molly,” he warned with a single shake of his head, but she couldn’t resist.

Pushing her fingers through the damp strands, she ran them around until Sean looked every bit as unruly as she felt. He shook her off, catching her wrists in his hands. This was where he would throw his head back and laugh, maybe sending her out in a quick spin as they returned their attention to the band—but that’s not what happened. Where there should have been laughter, Sean’s brows drew forward and his jaw went hard. Instead of reeling her out, he used the hold on her wrists to pull her closer. His hands moved to her hips, his fingers spreading wide. Flexing. The band and the bar and the crowd pressing in on them seemed to fall away as they tumbled deep and deeper still into each other’s eyes.

It was just dancing. That was what she was telling herself, even as the hot churn low in her belly called her a liar. Promising it was more.

The last notes sounded, and suddenly, the crowd that had been pushing at them from every direction was thinning out, the house lights coming on as the sound system started playing overhead. Sean looked around, withdrawing one hand from her hip and then the other.

Retrieving his phone, he pulled up his new app and shook his head. “Why don’t we just call it an even hour?”

He was being conservative. An hour probably wouldn’t have covered her infractions alone, but at this point, she wasn’t sure it mattered. The knitting wasn’t doing anything but possibly spurring a kink she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to share with anyone else.

“Forget the app, Sean. Just”—she drew a long breath and took his hand—“come with me a minute. We’ve got to talk.”

They cut around to the back hallway. Half a dozen girls were waiting for the ladies’ room, and while the men’s was open…gross. This wasn’t going to take long, but even a second in a public men’s room was more than Molly could handle. Pulling Sean farther, she pushed out the back door and waited for him to prop it open with a broken slat of wood. They could still hear the music—one of those Ed Sheeran songs was playing—but it was quieter outside, and they were alone in the alley.

Sean took a step back and ran his hand through his hair, pausing when he realized the state of disarray she’d left it in. “You messed up my hair,” he accused, his grin telling her that he knew how much she’d liked doing it.

She shook her head, unable to play along. “You’re messing up my mind.”

The half smile fell away, and then Sean was stepping closer, his eyes going serious. “If this is about the dancing, Moll—”

“It’s not. It’s about you and me figuring out something besides aversion therapy, because the knitting isn’t working.”

Sean sighed, looking relieved. “I wasn’t going to say anything, because it was still early and I was hoping…but you’re right. I want to say whatever’s going on between us will go away on its own. That if we just ignore it, eventually it will stop being an issue.”

Molly nodded, then shook her head and stepped into Sean’s space. “Or maybe… Okay, I know this is going to sound nuts, and it probably is, but I was talking to Jill inside and…” And this sounded so stupid, she couldn’t believe she was even thinking about suggesting it, but then Sean ducked low, putting his face back into her line of sight and giving her that smile that promised she could tell him anything.

“What is it?”

“Do you ever really wish you could have a doughnut, but you know you shouldn’t? Like you’re trying to cut back on bad carbs or processed sugar, or maybe they were just out of doughnuts when you went to the stand and you figured you’d just wait until you could get one another day, but then all day you think about the doughnut, because you didn’t just have it when you wanted it, so when you finally, finally see a chance to get the doughnut again, you make a really bad decision and buy, like, all the doughnuts they have and eat and eat and eat until you’re sick to your stomach and filled with regret?”

That endearing smile had left Sean’s face, but being Sean, he was taking her question to heart. He rubbed a hand along his jaw and cocked his head to the side. “No. I bust my ass at the gym so I don’t worry about carbs and sugar, and when I want a doughnut, I get one. And I mean, this sounds pretty obnoxious, but if I really want a doughnut and the stand doesn’t have one, I call down to Jerry, and I’ve got one in the next twenty minutes.”

Molly blew out a breath in a silent plea for patience. This guy ran the most successful hotel in the city, could do her taxes in his head, and knew the answer to every Jeopardy question every time they watched the show…and yet he couldn’t see where she was going with this?

“Say it’s a special doughnut and—”

“I’m more of a bagel guy.”

Maybe she should have used an éclair.

“You’re the doughnut, Sean!” she snapped, exasperation wearing her thin. “You are the doughnut I’m craving. The one I keep thinking about when I’m supposed to be thinking of other things. You. And all I was saying is that maybe what we need to do is give in just a little. Have a taste to curb the craving… Before we crack and wake up surrounded by shredded Dunkin’ Donut bags and a bed filled with crumbs.”

Sean had stopped moving. Heck, he looked like he might not even be breathing, he was so still. Except for his eyes, which had gone dark and serious as they searched hers.

“Molly, what kind of a taste are you talking about?” he asked, his voice gone gravelly rough.

She swallowed past the anxious knot in her throat. “A kiss. Not more than a doughnut hole.”

His stare dropped to her mouth. “You’re talking about now? Here?”

She angled her head, taking in the setting. The concrete was cracked, and Dumpsters lined one side of the alley, while fire escapes hung overhead. She looked at someone’s discarded McDonald’s bag and nodded. “Yeah, this is probably perfect for our needs.” At Sean’s raised brow, she explained. “It’s not romantic, so I don’t have to worry about you getting caught up in some princess fantasy. We’re only semiprivate out here. While if we were at home, we’d have zero chance of getting interrupted.”

“Plus, the assortment of sexable surfaces on hand back at your place.”

“I know. Don’t get me started. But here, the atmosphere isn’t really conducive to going too far. You know what I mean?”

The muscle in his jaw bounced, and he met her eyes. “You worried about things going too far?”

He wasn’t? “No. But better safe than sorry, right?”

He moved a step closer, his single slow breath seeming to fill out his chest and broaden his shoulders. “Sure.”

She swallowed hard. “Honestly, it’s probably going to be gross when we finally do it.”

Sean nodded, close enough now for his hands to settle on her hips. “If you say so.”

Her hands met his stomach, her fingers briefly catching the fabric of his shirt before coasting up to rest lightly on his shoulders. “Just a taste,” she whispered, her lungs tight as their eyes met.

“Just enough to satisfy the craving,” he corrected, lowering his mouth to hers so slowly, she knew he was giving her this last chance to back out. Maybe she should have, but after all the years of wondering, being this close to knowing what Sean’s kiss tasted like was something she couldn’t back away from.

And then…contact.