Page 17 of Gin and Bear It

He stares at me for a few long beats, then sighs, defeated. “I’ll tell her to tone it down.”

Delia has never toned anything down in her life, but he knows that deep in his heart. I don’t need to tell him.

“When can I move in?” he asks after a long pause.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Yeah, we’ll get married and I’ll continue to live at home,” he says with a snort. “When can I move in? I’m losing my mind living with my parents.”

I blink and look around my apartment. My little sanctuary, where everything is exactly as I want it to be. Where everything works for my brain when most of the world doesn’t.

Then I look at Ash. A man. Touching my soaps and body oils. Drinking the fancy little drinks I impulse buy to brighten my day. Maybe even walking around semi-naked.

Not sure if that last one is a pro or a con.

Who am I kidding? It’s totally a con, because I’m sexually frustrated enough. I don’t need to add a man I won’t ever touch to the equation.

But if we were in love, we’d obviously live together. Sleep together, even. I’d be thrilled to have him everywhere.

I let my head fall back so I can look at the ceiling.

“Ugh. You’re sleeping on the couch and you have to follow my rules,” I say. “I guess you can move in after we tell everyone.”

“Fine with me.” He drums his fingers on the table, leveling me with a look that makes my body heat. “What about sex?”

“Nope,” I say immediately. “We don’t have to take it that far.”

He holds his hand up just as quickly as I’d responded. “I had to ask. And I’m assuming sex with other people is also off the table. For both of us.”

“Right.”

Not that I’m getting laid any time soon, even though my sex drought is driving me insane. Troy didn’t have the highest sex drive, so when things were rocky between us, we never had sex. So I had dry spells even when I was in a relationship.

He blows out a breath, like the lack of sex is the first time he’s fully understood the gravity of what we’re doing. A whole year with just our own hands and/or tools of the trade.

I let out a breath, too. Okay, I understand where he’s coming from.

“But we’ll have to touch. Kiss,” he says. His eyes are so distractingly gorgeous. His brothers all have brown eyes, but his are a touch more green.

“Right. Within reason. Nothing too handsy.”

“Of course. What’s the safe word?” he asks. “If you’re uncomfortable.”

“If either of us are uncomfortable,” I say, “then we’ll say…soup, I guess.”

“Easy to remember.”

He looks at me like he wants to kiss me. I don’t know if I can handle that yet, so I look down at the table.

“What else are we missing?” I ask, turning off the first of my alarms that tell me to get out of bed and get ready for work. “Oh, the loose ends. Grace is really the only person outside of Jeremiah who knows about what I need to do to inherit the hotel. I didn’t want to worry everyone with my BS. But she knows what’s at stake, so she’ll stay quiet.”

“Good.”

We sit in silence, aside from Pip’s squeaks and meows. I take another deep breath and let it out.

“The divorce,” he finally says. “After a year. I’m assuming it’ll be simple because we won’t have any assets or anything. But I’ll pay for it.”

“Right. Thanks.” The idea of being divorced is just as weird as being married, but that’s future Jada’s problem. “Shake on it?”