Page 48 of Wait for Him

“Choose your next words very fucking carefully.”

His mouth twitches. “Thirsty.”

“Good answer.”

He walks into the room and sets the coffee beside the water and aspirin he must have arranged for me last night. The mattress dips when he sits on the edge, and then his hand is in my hair, ruffling the back of my head the way you'd settle a kid who's worked herself into a tantrum.

I hate how much I don't hate it.

“Don't overthink last night.”

Too late.

“Nothing happened,” he continues. “You're fine. You're safe. You've got to be at the office in an hour. Want me to wait around and you can ride down with me?”

Ugh. Fucking hell. This is the whole infuriating package of him.

The aspirin. The water. The coffee. Clothes already laid out in the bathroom. Nothing happened delivered before I can even start humiliating myself by apologizing for everything that almost did.

He knows me too fucking well.

Worse, he's done this before.

Two years ago, there was another drunken night. Another line blurred that neither of us had any business getting near. He never mentioned it afterward, and I've kept it buried in the section of my brain labeled never happened, where Jackson and I have accumulated an alarming amount of material over the years.

He made it impossible to be embarrassed then.

He's making it impossible now.

Somehow that makes me want to be both embarrassed and angry purely on principle.

I bury my face back into the pillow. “I hate you.”

“I know you do.” I can hear the smirk in his voice, the bastard, and his fingers move through my hair again. “Is that a yes?”

I turn my head enough to glare at him with one eye. “Do I have to speak in the elevator?”

“No.”

“Fine. Damn it,” I yell, kicking both legs against the mattress like a petulant child who has entirely run out of better options, which, to be fair, I have.

“Then get your ass in gear.” His weight lifts off the bed, and his hand gives my head one last ruffle on the way up. “Up you go.”

“Don't treat me like a child. I'm ten years older than you, Jackson.” I swat at his hand without any real conviction, mostly on principle because I'm hungover, heartbroken and wearing yesterday's underwear, so principle is about the only thing I have left.

“Yeah, but you're pocket-sized.” The smirk is all over his face now, fully unrepentant. “Age doesn't count when I can fit you in a carry-on.”

“I hope you choke on something.”

“That's not very nice.”

“Neither is calling a grown woman pocket-sized.”

“If the carry-on fits.”

I lift my middle finger, but before I can formulate something sufficiently hateful, he takes both my hands and pulls me off the mattress. My legs haven't received notice that we're participating in the day yet, because I stumble straight into him, and his arm comes around my back before I can correct myself.

His chin settles naturally on top of my head.