Love Shack (Tiny Houses, Big Hearts) (18 page)

Brandon was completely lost. He picked up his shirt and socks off the floor and tossed his shoes into the shoe cubby under the stairs as he followed Felicity to the bedroom.

He knew what had just happened had been building for a while. He didn’t have anything to apologize for, but it was what a good guy should do when the girl looked like she was confused. He should apologize to Felicity and take responsibility to give her an easy out.

And he shouldn’t let her think this could turn into a relationship. She wasn’t the type of girl he could have a relationship with. She’d want him to do this crazy charity thing with her. Not to mention the fact that he’d just had sex with someone he was investigating like a common criminal.

He found her stripping a layer of blankets off her bed.

She bundled up the fabric and held it in front of herself like a shield. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She threw a pillow at his head. “Oh, I’m being ridiculous?”

He held the pillow in one hand, and plucked the stray feather out that had landed in his mouth with the other. “Yeah. A bit.”

“So what? You want us to pretend like what happened in the kitchen didn’t happen? I’m supposed to lay beside you in the bed and pretend I don’t want to screw your brains out? I’m going to go insane, or masturbate while lying beside you.”

He gulped at the thought of her not being able to keep her hands off her pussy around him. He was shocked at how much his dick thought he needed to rethink this plan.

“I think we moved too fast.”

She didn’t throw the other pillow she had over her head. “That’s a lot better than apologizing for having sex with me.”

“You looked shell-shocked. I thought you thought it was a mistake.”

“It was amazing sex. I don’t see how that’s ever a mistake. Although after your reaction, having to live together for another three weeks seems like a pretty colossally bad idea.”

Brandon sat on the edge of the bed and tossed the pillow back where it should go. He pulled his shirt on over his head and patted the seat next to him. He was grateful that Felicity sat with covered breasts and some breathing room between them. She hadn’t bothered with the bra, but he could form a more rational response than when her nipples were calling to him.

“Let’s take a step back and make a few more logical steps.” He told her. “I’m attracted to you.”

“I already knew that. A guy’s dick doesn’t turn to steel fucking a woman he’s not attracted to.”

He closed his eyes and thought about his boss and all the crap he wished he could take back telling him. It helped the blood from running back to home base.

“We don’t know each other very well, and there are a lot of details about your past that I think you are hiding on purpose. I lost control. Tom put that thought in my head, and you felt so good…”

“You’re about to apologize again. Stop it.”

He put his head in his hands and leaned over on his knees. He was talking to the floor when he told her, “I think you’re hiding something important, and I can’t get close to someone who is hiding something like that from me.”

“But you can fuck them?”

He turned and glared at her.

Felicity held up her hands in surrender. “I’m just saying.”

Taking a deep breath he tried again. “And I’m just saying, I’m not a guy who does that type of thing without establishing parameters, or a relationship status ahead of time. We don’t know what’s going on outside of these walls. Hell, I don’t know what’s going on behind your emotional walls, and that is why what we did was a mistake.”

“Let me get this straight…” She turned toward him and tucked her legs under her. “You plan out where a relationship is going before you have sex with someone?”

“Or what we both expect out of the encounter. Yes. It saves me from the fuckup like the one I had in the kitchen.”

She laughed. At least she could find humor in this.

“No wonder you let loose like you did. Sex isn’t supposed to be planned and discussed to death. It’s supposed to be spontaneous and full of fireworks.” She put her hand on his knee and rubbed back and forth like she was telling a distraught little league player he’d get ’em next game. “No wonder you didn’t know how to come down from such a great orgasm.”

“This is so strange.”

“What is?” she asked.

At least she was putting the blankets back on the bed. He wasn’t sure if she forgave him, if things were back to the way they had been before, or if she was planning on pity fucking him tonight.

None of those things worked for him to keep his sanity.

“Your attitude towards this. That’s what’s strange. You aren’t the least bit upset anymore? You stormed out of the kitchen a second ago,” he reminded her.

“Well, I thought you didn’t think I was good enough to fuck sober, but you are just a sexually repressed clueless dumbass. Don’t worry. I understand it’s not your fault that you don’t know how to have casual sex.”

His head was spinning.

“What?”

“Help me get the stuff outside secured in case that storm does roll through. Then we’ll go to bed. That sex wrung me out, and your incompetent banter after made me exhausted.”

This woman was insane, but for some reason he found himself smiling as she danced around the living room organizing everything they needed to do for the night. She even got the coffee set up to make it easier on them in the morning.

It wasn’t until they made it back up to the clothes rack under the stairs that he even realized it was still awkward, no matter how she tried to pretend it wasn’t. She started to strip.

He grabbed her shoulders. “What are you doing?”

“Getting changed. You’ve seen me naked. Is it really necessary for me to go to my bathroom to change again?”

He nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

She rolled her eyes and trucked off to the bathroom. Brandon banged his head against the trim around the clothing rack as he tugged out his sleeping pants and a polo shirt. There was no way he was going to wake up to her soft hands against his chest again and be able to control himself.

Glancing over his shoulder, he listened as she was brushing her teeth. He figured she’d be a bit yet, so he stripped fast, and tugged on his bottoms. Looking over his shoulder, he was relieved she hadn’t finished early and threw his clothing in the washer/dryer unit like he’d become accustomed to doing. Felicity said she didn’t mind washing his clothes as long as they could be washed with hers in cold water.

He made it to the bedroom before she did. Looking at the empty cord he realized his phone was still in his jacket pocket. He hopped down the stairs to grab it.

Felicity had saved him the trouble.

He held out his hand. “I was just coming to look for that.”

She didn’t hand it over. She was staring at the screen, her left temple pulsing in and out as it became obvious she was grinding her teeth at what she was reading.

Brandon’s heart dropped. He hoped it was anything but a text from his boss. Texts showed up on his home-screen when he flipped the phone to face up.

“You’ll be happy to know your boss got the information you were looking for.”

Oh, shit.

“Felicity, I can explain…”

“Really? About running background checks on me with my information from the loan you turned me down for? How was that not shredded? I was going to let all this go and just enjoy our time together, but this…” She threw the phone at his chest. Thankfully he caught it. “This is not okay.”

“My boss looked into you and couldn’t find out anything before two years ago. He got nervous. All I told him was what your no-go topics of conversation were.” He wanted desperately to look at his phone and see what Felicity had seen, but something told him, if he stopped looking in her eyes, he’d lose the one thing he had going for him…sincerity.

“Didn’t you think there might be a reason that information was sealed?”

“Yes. Which is why I wasn’t pushing. But then…” He waved to the kitchen. “That all happened, and I felt guilty for having sex when I knew there was someone digging around in your past.”

“You could have told me.”

“What? You would have thrown me out. It would have caused all kinds of media to swarm us both.”

“It’s not like I don’t have someone looking into you.”

His brain spun. He was pretty sure there was something going to implode inside his skull. “I can’t believe this conversation.”

“You have a problem with the sex, because we weren’t being honest. So let me ease your mind and tell you I have Deborah looking into your past for me too.”

“The news reporter?”

“She said she would keep it off the record.”

“You can’t possibly believe that.” He stomped up the stairs. He couldn’t stay here. They had to call this thing off. It wasn’t worth whatever business the bank was getting.

He could move. He could leave and move to Alaska where there were fewer people than moose and he would be able to escape this.

“I told her I won’t give her a discount on her first house if she shares any of your personal information.”

“All that means in news reporter talk is that she won’t use my name. She could say a banker living in a tiny house for a month and everyone would be able to put two and two together. God. Are you an idiot?”

He regretted the words as soon as they left his lips. He chased her back to the kitchen. It was a short chase.

“I didn’t mean to call you an idiot. I’m stressed out, and there’s nowhere to get away from each other in this space to cool down.”

She grabbed the bottle of wine she’d popped in the fridge and took a big swig straight from the source. “You know what your problem is?”

“I’m sure you’re going to tell me something brilliant with slurred speech. I should take notes.”

“I can be just as articulate when intoxicated as I am sober. So no, smartass. You don’t have to take notes. Just listen.” She took another drink. “I think you’re hot. You’re a ridiculously perfect specimen of man-flesh, and I have wanted to fuck you since you sat across the desk from me in your bank and tried to crush my dreams.”

This was not what he had been expecting. Brandon shut up and gave her the side-eye waiting for the “but”.

“You walked around my home, making it smell like your deodorant and aftershave. You brought a testosterone cocktail into my house, and I decided I wanted to take a sip. We. Had. Sex. That’s it. I know damn well that you don’t want me. That you couldn’t
possibly
date me.” She waved her hands in the air, and a bit of wine splashed on her otherwise spotless counter. “And you know what?”

He shook his head. He had no idea where this was going.

“I enjoyed fucking you. I enjoyed the sex. Your problem is…you can’t enjoy a little bit of afterglow without thinking about what comes next.”

“It’s kind of hard…” he started.

She interrupted with a snort. “I liked it better when it was. The blood flow turned off your asinine brain.”

He grabbed the bottle from her hands before she could take another drink. He was going to say the alcohol was what caused all this, but the smug look on her face was so frustrating, he took a drink and drained the rest of the merlot. He let the alcohol burn down to warm his belly and counted to ten as he placed the bottle in the sink.

“It’s difficult…” he started when the vein in his skull stopped pounding. “To not think about the future. That’s all I do all day long. I look at risk management. I have to decide if this contract is maintainable. If there is enough earning potential in the business plan, and I have to decide if the person presenting the project can pull it off. My whole day is all about the future, and trying to predict how it’s going to happen.”

Her scowl finally softened. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a break from that?”

“Not knowing what’s coming next makes me feel out of control.” He had to admit. Most of his success was built upon his interpersonal relationship character flaws.

“You don’t have to be in control here.” She started toward him.

What the hell was she thinking? There was so much secrecy between them. This whole idea was awful.

So why, when she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair did his entire body scream,
YES
.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Felicity knew it was putting off the inevitable to run from her old life for this long. She knew it was stupid to think with all this publicity that no one would think to look into her past. But she’d lived in the moment for the past two years, and she’d never been happier. Knowing she had the ability to use her knowledge of tiny homes to help others feel that same bliss had her giving up what she’d protected for so long.

She’d given up the ability to disappear. When she’d come up with the idea for the tiny community, she’d drawn up details on a napkin she’d saved from a hot dog vendor that rolled through the park she was passing by.

It made her smile to write down her ideas. It made her happy. And all this freedom, made her happy too. She’d realized happiness came from the journey she took that didn’t have a final destination. Knowing she was living a life that she shouldn’t be was exciting in a rebel-way at first. Now, she saw the beauty of simplicity, and of friendship, and how happy she could be surrounding herself with people who had found their passion.