Unwrapped (9 page)

Tilting his head, he swept his gaze over her again, taking
in the shining dark mass of her hair piled high on top of her head and held
there by assorted clips. Wispy tendrils, curling with the heat, framed her
face, and a flush of pink brightened her cheeks. Her parted lips enticed him,
rosy and full and pillow soft. And her body. . . He wished the concealing
bubbles would dissipate.

Derrick stood observing her another moment, until he started
to feel uncomfortably like a voyeur. Time to wake Sleeping Beauty.

Pitching his voice loud enough to conquer the whirlpooling water
and her music, he called her once more. "Mia!" Then softly,
"Damn."

As though struck by lightning, her arms flew out to her
sides, and she bolted straight up, sending water slopping over the edge of the
tub. The iPod and its tray disappeared into the froth of bubbles with a splash,
and her mouth opened wide in a piercing banshee scream sharp enough to slice
the ears off every man in a fifty-mile radius.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sloshing upright in a surge of adrenaline-spiked terror, her
heart bounding into her throat and blocking her breath, Mia whipped the sleep
mask off her face to find Derrick backed up against the sink.

Both hands clasped over his ears, he was shouting,
"Sorry-sorry-sorry!" at the top of his lungs.

"Are you out of your mind?" she shrieked.
"You scared the life out of me!"

Slapping both hands at her heaving chest in uncontrollable
reflex, she gaped at him, panting to recover her breath. Her pulse crashed and
clanged, pushing the blood crazily through her veins, emptying her head and
filling her bursting heart. The room swayed in dizzy circles.

A hockey-masked intruder wielding a butcher knife would have
startled her less.

Her slapping hands slowed to rubbing, coaxing her heart back
into place. Begging her lungs to fill. Was this what a heart attack felt like?

"What the hell are you doing here?" she demanded,
her voice still high and reedy from lack of oxygen.

Derrick held his hands out placatingly. "I'm
sorry."

Belatedly realizing she sat poker-straight in the tub, her
breasts covered by only the thinnest slide of bubbles, Mia ducked beneath the
water and foam, glaring her fury. The fight-or-flight response still swirled in
confusion, her extremities going tingly and numb with the after-effects of
panic.

"Oh, you're sorry. I'll show you sorry, you. . ."
He
dared.

Wishing for something to throw, she scrabbled her hands over
the bottom of the bathtub. Her fingers closed on the metal tray. With an
enraged growl, she tried to chuck it at him, but it caught in the cord of her
headphones.

"Here, now," he said sharply, snatching the tray
and ruined iPod from her grasp. "Careful." He dropped them into the
sink at his back, then howled when her heavy bottle of bubble bath
landed—with force—on his bare foot. Standing on one leg to rub his
injured toes, he pinned her with a glare of his own. "Calm down."

Already fired up with righteous indignation, Mia hissed at
him through gritted teeth. "Don't tell me to calm down. You sneak in here,
scare me to
death
, humiliate
me—"

"Mia—"

"I'm not finished!" Her eyes darted to and fro,
seeking another missile. "You-you—"
Bastard!
"Get out, Derrick."

"No."

She narrowed her eyes. He'd already refused her once that
day. No way was she putting up with it again. Tears pricked the backs of her
lids, so she bit the inside of her cheek to hold them back and let fly with her
next weapon.

He sidestepped the bottle—"That's enough, damn
it!"—and the largest of her candles, its flame blowing out on the
way toward his shin, though melted wax flew in an arc. If she was lucky, he'd
lose some leg hair getting it off his skin.

Derrick beat her to the next item in reach, but he'd stepped
too close to her to do it. His fingers closed over the rest of the bottles on
the side of the tub. Her fingers closed over his left nipple and twisted it through
the thin fabric of his shirt.

"Jesus Christ!"

Dancing back out of her range, he dropped the rest of her
cache of lotions and bubble baths onto the counter with a clatter, rubbing his
abused nipple and scowling at her as if
he
were the injured party.

"You're lucky I didn't aim lower," she said with a
meaningful glance at his crotch, biting her words off like chunks of ice
breaking from a berg in a bitterly cold ocean. "I want you to leave.
Now."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Drawing back from the open threat in her fire-sparked green
eyes—eyes still red and puffy from crying—Derrick's mind whirled.
This was not going at all the way he'd planned. He almost wished for his own
temper to rouse, but it couldn't climb its way clear of the agony he read in her
trembling mouth and quivering chin. Guilt clawed at him instead. She'd shed
more tears after he'd left.

Tears for Barry? Or tears over him?

Neither answer made him feel any better. He didn't want her
giving Barry-the-Prick another thought, but he couldn't bear knowing he'd
caused her pain.

Some best friend he'd turned out to be. And now he had to
convince her to allow him back into her heart as something even more important.
Christ, he'd fucked this up nine ways to Armageddon.

"Mia—"

A sound like a teakettle on full boil issued through her
lips. "I said—"

"I know, but I'm not leaving. Not until we talk."

All at once, the fight seemed to drain out of her. Her
shoulders slumped. She pulled her knees up, barely visible beneath the mountain
of bubbles created by the jetted tub, and dropped her forehead to them, her
hands clasped around her legs.

"Please go," she whispered, and had daggers of
remorse piercing his heart.

He'd take her anger any day over defeated dejection.

Cautious now, fearing more tears, Derrick flicked the switch
to turn off the whirlpool and dropped to his knees beside the tub, disregarding
the water all over the floor. In the sudden silence, the sound of her sniffle
shot into his gut like an arrow. He propped his elbows on the side of the bath
and stared at her bowed head, wondering how to begin. How to start the last
five minutes, or better yet the entire day, over.

"Why are you here, Derrick?" She asked the
question to her knees, her tone wooden.

All of his hazy plans and speeches, his barely-formed ideas
for how this conversation was supposed to go, dissolved. What she needed from
him was simple truth.

"Because I need to tell you—"

He paused to clear his throat and a slender thread of
self-preservation wiggled its way into his brain. He was putting his heart on
the line here, without the smallest clue how she really felt about him beyond
friendship. If he told her he loved her, and she didn't feel the same, it might
destroy everything they already had together. Was he really willing to risk it
all when they'd never even had one date as an actual couple? Had never shared
more than a few drunken kisses she might not even remember?

The fact of the matter remained—she hadn't declared
undying love for him or asked for a relationship. All she'd asked him for was
sex. And, to be extremely clear, sex only once. It was up to him to convince
her she wanted more. Wanted him. Forever.

Mia raised her head to stare at him, waiting for him to
finish. Her eyes held his, wide and wounded, but her entire face, from crown to
dripping chin, was covered in thick, creamy foam, giving him the totally
inappropriate urge to laugh.

Something of his humor must have shown in his face, because
she frowned and said, "What?"

In answer, he reached forward and swiped the bubbles from
her skin, heartened when she didn't pull away from his touch. If his thumb
lingered a beat too long on the full, sweet curve of her bottom lip, Mia didn't
seem to notice.

"You look like Santa Claus," he said, a smile
tugging one side of his mouth.

Rolling her eyes, Mia grabbed the washcloth hanging on the
end of the tub's faucet and finished cleaning the sparkling froth from her
cheeks.

And just like that, the answer came to him. Hadn't his
mother—the world's most compulsive planner—called earlier that
morning specifically to remind him it was precisely three months until
Christmas?

He knew exactly what gift he wanted to find under the tree
this year. His smile grew.

"Derrick?"

Oh, yes. Mia's Three Month Rule was going to work in a guy's
favor for once.

His.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Mia's heart, so recently returned to a near-normal pace
after the scare he'd given her, gave a little bump at the expression on his
face. There was something. . . almost wolfish in the way he considered her, in
the smile dimpling his cheeks.

He was up to something.

And she wanted no part of it. If he thought for one second
he could hurt her the way he had, then waltz back in here like nothing had
happened, she'd just disabuse him of that notion right this second.

"Look, Derrick," she began, but he laid his
fingers across her lips to shush her. The warmth of his skin, and the warmth in
his eyes, surprised her enough that she stopped talking.

Leaning toward her, his gaze intent on hers, Derrick slid
his hand around to cup the back of her head. His eyes, such a gorgeous, unusual
shade—topaz ringed with gold—hypnotized her. His fingers massaged
in tiny circles at the base of her skull, but if he meant to soothe her, he was
going about it all wrong.

Sexual tension zinged across her nerves, into her bones. It
heated her blood and brought a deeper flush to her skin. Her nipples tightened
to needy peaks and the place between her legs began to throb.

What the hell was he doing?

"I think—" she said, her voice huskier than
she'd intended.

"Shhh," Derrick interrupted. Again. He shifted
closer, his mouth a mere breath from hers, until he was practically inside the
tub with her.

The tub!

Good God. For a moment, caught up in his spell, she'd
completely forgotten she was in the bath, naked and vulnerable.

"Stop!" Raising her hands, she pushed against his
chest, but it was like shoving a mountain. Lord, he was heavy.

Mia held her breath, and Derrick held his position an extra
beat. Just long enough, she understood, to let her know that when he moved, it
was because he was giving her the space she'd demanded, not because she'd made
him.

Men! Such egos.

He dropped back onto his heels, removing his hand from the
back of her neck. Discreetly, she pulled as much air into her quaking lungs as
she could, but when his expression turned serious, her stomach plummeted to her
toes.

She thought,
Here we go
.

But his usual confidence seemed to desert him. He swiped a
hand over his face, rubbing at his temples, and Mia had to quell a sudden urge
to replace his fingers with her own. Nerves kept her silent and still.

When he raised his head, the look on his face was
determined, like a knight heading into battle.

"We need to talk," he said, and her stomach
continued its descent. Through the floor, the layers of the earth, and out into
space, leaving an aching emptiness behind. Had he come back only to break their
friendship off in person?

"Okay," she said cautiously, digging her nails
into her thighs hard enough to leave deep crescents in her skin, anything to
keep the tears that wanted to spring to her eyes from flowing down her cheeks.

"I'll wait for you in your room."

Derrick rose to his feet, looking at her with an expression
she couldn't read. Then he left, closing the door softly behind him, and Mia
sat staring at her toes, wondering how she would survive the next few minutes.

Her emotions swung on a pendulum between anger at his
desertion, happiness at seeing him again, and fear over what he had to say.
She'd never had such a roller-coaster day in her life.

"Better get it over with," she said under her
breath, promising herself a real breakdown session, complete with the Ben &
Jerry's carton in her freezer, after he left.

Not bothering with her usual routine, she settled for a
quick rubdown and brushing out her hair. She threw her thick, fuzzy pink robe
around her shoulders and crossed the hall, feeling as though she were entering
a gloomy arena filled with the ghosts of past relationships, instead of her own
sunny room. One where all of her most desperate insecurities lurked, waiting to
pounce.

Derrick sat on the edge of her bed, his knees splayed and
his hands clasped between them, head down like he was deciphering the meaning
of life from the whorls in her grey carpet. Two wet handprints marked his
shirt. He looked up when she entered and scooted over a bit, indicating she
should sit beside him.

A long, uncomfortable pause formed a chasm between them.

"Can I ask you something?" he finally asked.

Mia shrugged, not looking at him.

"Why have you waited to sleep with anyone all this time?"

She stiffened. "You know why."

Silent, he nodded, his attention still fixed on his hands.
"Then why would you want to throw it away out of the blue, just because of
what happened with Barry?"

Mia rose from the bed to stare unseeing out the window, humiliation
swamping her all over again. "Just say what you came to say."

Instead, Derrick's arms came around her, wrapping her in his
warmth and strength. He held on, ignoring her ramrod-straight posture and
attempts to move away, tucking her head firmly beneath his chin.

Traitorous, treacherous feelings. Despite her best
intentions, her body softened, molding itself into the comfort and familiarity
of her best friend's frame, a place she'd safely nestled too many times to
count over the years. She might not find herself here ever again. She'd take
what comfort he offered while she could.