Well, technically, there’d been very little actual sleep involved both on the roof or last night, which had been one round after another of torrid, erotic, sensual sex such as she’d never known.

“You’re holding out on me,” Elle said.

“Forget that!” Willa whispered. “He has a one-night-stand kit!” Okay, technically last night made night two, so it was really a two-night-stand kit.

“Honey, that just makes him a smart man.”

Willa rolled her eyes so hard they nearly fell out of her head and she disconnected. Things were fine. She was fine. She could do this. One-night stands turned into two-night stands all the time. In fact, she stared at Keane’s stuff and could admit that maybe Elle was right. Not that she was about to admit it because Elle already knew she was right.

Elle was always right.

Willa slipped into the only clothes she had in the bathroom—yesterday’s work clothes. She did this because she could think better when she wasn’t naked. A quick peek in the mirror confirmed she was still smiling like an idiot. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Keane stood there propping up the doorjamb with a beefy shoulder, expression slightly wary. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

He gave her a half smile. “Gotta be honest. I figured you’d be long gone when I woke up.”

“It’s my place.”

“You know what I mean,” he said. He wasn’t playing this morning.

So she wouldn’t either. “I’m working hard at being a grown-up,” she said. “And that would have been rude anyway.”

His smile spread and sent warmth skittering through her. “God forbid you be rude.” He tugged her into him and nuzzled at her neck. “Mornin’.”

Since her knees wobbled, she clutched at him. “Mornin’. Um, Keane?”

“Mmm?” His mouth was busy at her throat and he was big and warm and shirtless, and her eyes nearly rolled back in her head.

“I really do have to get to work,” she managed. “It’s later than I usually get started. You can stay, of course, use my shower, whatever. Just lock up when you go.”

He lifted his head and met her gaze. Searched it. And then apparently decided she was indeed to be trusted being a grown-up because he nodded.

Relief that they were handling this without hurt or hard feelings, and even better yet, a discussion that she wasn’t ready to have, she leaned in and kissed him, going for short and sweet.

But he tightened his grip, changed the angle of her kiss and took over in Keane fashion. By the time he let her go, she had to search her brain for what her game plan had been.

“Work,” he said with a smile. “We both have to get to work.”

“Right.” She blinked. “Um . . .”

With a low laugh, he put his hands on her hips and turned her toward the living room, adding a light smack on her ass to get her moving. “Have a good one.”

She’d had so many orgasms the night before that she couldn’t count them. She was wearing a perma-smile. What could go wrong?

 

 

Chapter 22

 

#ThrowingShade

When Willa was gone, Keane looked down at Pita, sitting calmly near his bare feet.

She regarded him from down the length of her nose and gave a little sniff.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “You’re stuck with me again.”

His phone was having a seizure on the nightstand, full of texts and emails from Sass and Mason. He scrubbed a hand down over his face and swore when the phone went off again, this time a call from Sass. He hit ignore.

“Mew,” Pita said, going for pathetic.

“I know. Food. Pronto.” He pulled on his jeans and searched out his shirt, finding it hanging from a lampshade.

Normally this would’ve given him a smile because it meant the night had been suitably down and dirty and sexy hot.

And it had been those things.

It’d also been a helluva lot more. Which he figured was the real reason Willa had taken off so early for work. She was feeling it.

But she didn’t want to.

Not the best feeling in the world. Pulling the shirt over his head, he turned in a circle looking for his shoes.

Petunia was sitting in front of them looking very smug and happy with herself.

“Move, cat.”

For once in her life, she did as he asked. She moved—revealing that she’d once again used his shoes as her own personal kitty litter.

Willa sat on the counter of her own shop in yesterday’s clothes, stuffing her face with Tina’s out-of-this-world muffins.

The muffins didn’t fix anything that was wrong with her life, but they did make her feel better.

It was still early, way before opening time, a fact for which she was grateful. At some point she’d have to figure out how to eke an extra hour out of her day in order to get upstairs to her apartment and out of yesterday’s clothes. She’d also have to figure out how to lose the ridiculously sated, just-laid expression still all over her face, but so far it was refusing to go away.

Damn orgasms.

Rory and Cara showed up and took one look at her and smiled. “Are you making the walk of shame in your own shop?” Cara asked.

Yes. “Of course not.”

Rory eyeballed Willa up one side and down the other. “Actually,” the girl said, “the true walk of shame is when you take all the mugs and plates you’ve been hoarding from your nightstand to your kitchen.”

They both laughed.

Willa ignored them and popped the last muffin into her mouth. She took a moment to close her eyes and moan as the delicious pumpkin spice burst onto her tongue.

“She’s not talking,” Cara said to Rory. “That’s weird. I’ve never seen her not talk.”

“As soon as the caffeine kicks in she’ll come back to life.” Rory nudged Willa’s coffee closer to her and then backed away like Willa might be a cocked and loaded shotgun.

“But she doesn’t look tired,” Cara said, staring at Willa. “She looks like how my sister looks when her boyfriend’s on leave from the Army and they boink all night long.”

Willa choked on her muffin.

Rory pounded her on the back, flashing a rare grin as Elle and Haley and Pru knocked on the back door.

Willa came to life with sudden panic. “Don’t let them in!”