K. Bromberg: Slow Burn

Fuck. Damn. Shit.

I also can’t help but think what a truly good guy he is. This is all my fault—even though my mind is floating with fuzzy bits of our time together, I can still piece together the fact that Becks tried to do the right thing. He tried to put me to bed, let me sleep it off, prevent me from getting behind the wheel.

This is on me. Completely on me. Why couldn’t I have followed through with my plan to leave and go screw around with someone who wouldn’t have given a shit if I left in the morning without another word? Why last night of all nights did I need to feel something just a little bit more? Was I afraid that the dam I’d built around my heartache might break and maybe, just maybe, I wanted someone around who I knew would take care of me if it did?

And so I used him.

Used a good man who didn’t deserve to be used. Guilt eats at me until I force myself to open my eyes again and face Becks. I take in his handsome face and all-American good looks. He’s the quintessential good guy—most definitely not my stereotypical go-to tattooed bad boy. I study him for a minute, my eyes drifting back down to where the sheet rests low on his hips … because he may not be my type but that doesn’t mean I can’t admire his hotter-than-hell physique. Soon my mind wanders back to the feel of his muscles bunching beneath my fingers, and I can’t help but wonder if I could ever get used to him. To this.

I am so used to thriving on the wild, volatile but fun-as-fuck drama-filled relationships— well, if you can really call them relationships —with the rebels in my past.

I can’t help my hushed chuckle when the thought hits me: Who would’ve thought that Ry would have spent the night—shit, married—the reckless bad boy, while I spent it with the Southern gentleman? Talk about switching places. Something was most definitely screwy with the world.

When I look up, I startle as I meet Becks’s blue eyes. We stare at each other for a moment as we struggle with the awkwardness and figure out where to go from here. He looks at me from beneath half-closed eyelids and says, “Morning.” He yawns softly but never takes his eyes from mine as if he’s waiting to gauge my reaction before saying anything else.

“Good morning,” I murmur back, my fingers tracing idle lines on the sheet. A slow, sluggish smile turns up one corner of his mouth, and my heart stutters in my chest.

And panic starts closing in on my throat.

I don’t want to feel the warmth that just spread throughout my body at that lazy, boyish grin of his. I don’t want to feel the contentment I feel right now. And most of all, I don’t want to see that look in his eyes that tells me this could be so much more if I let it.

That’s what Lexi did.

And look where that left her and Danny. And Maddie .

I shake myself from my thoughts and try to swallow the lump of anxiety taking hold. I avert my eyes quickly as I calm my overactive imagination and stop freaking the fuck out. I remind myself that I took my batteries out of my biological clock and put them in my vibrator for a reason.

I can do this. I may not remember all of last night, but I recall telling him that it would be sex without strings. He understood up front what this was. No matter what the fuck last night was, it was just a physical connection between two willing adults. So why am I afraid to look up from my fidgeting fingers and meet his eyes?

“Hey?” The rasp of his voice, laced with concern, pulls at me until I can’t stand it anymore. I look up to his eyes. “What are you thinking …?” His voice trails off as I find mine.

I gather the sheet around my chest, “Becks,” I say his name with a shy smile on my face, “this is okay.” I shake my head for emphasis. “We may have been drunk last night, but, one, I’m never too drunk to not remember and enjoy … and boy, did I enjoy.” I can’t resist adding that last part because, casual or not, the man’s got some moves. Number three was definitely more earth shifting than number two. And hell if four wasn’t pretty damn good too. My comment causes the lazy smile on his face to spread into a sheepish grin, which instantly has me wanting to melt into him. And I can’t. It’s not an option, regardless of how much my insides are warmed by the thoughts I refuse to welcome.

“We agreed no strings. No complications,” I say, shrugging my shoulders to let him know that I’m more than okay with this. Something flickers in his eyes, and I can’t quite get a read on it, so I continue. “I’m not the typical, clingy female that—”

“You’re anything but typical,” he murmurs sleepily.

I just stare at him for a beat before I tell myself to get my point across before I say something stupid. “Thanks, but all I was trying to say is that I’m not the type of girl to turn into a psycho stalker after a night of casual sex.”

“Coming four times is not exactly casual sex,” he teases with a playful smirk, which has me laughing nervously.

“Becks, I just don’t want this to be awkward….” I shake my head, needing to say this to remove the guilt from my conscience. “I’m sorry that I pushed you last night … I didn’t mean for …” I sigh out loud as the thoughts I want to convey aren’t forming into the words I need.

“No one pushes me to do anything. Especially sex.”

His eyes search mine like he wants to say something else but he doesn’t. So I continue blurting out the first thing that comes to mind. “Thank you for taking care of me.” I cringe and avert my eyes immediately, embarrassed but glad I said it.

He continues staring at me for a moment with his quiet intensity, before nodding his head subtly and shifting to sit up. “Well, I’m glad we got that straight,” he says, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed so that his back is facing me. He scrubs a hand through his bed head, leaving it sticking up all over the place, before rising slowly. “No strings,” he repeats, standing up completely naked before walking toward the bathroom. I swear he mumbles something about a lasso, but I’m too busy looking at the view to care.

I may want no strings, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate one last lingering glance of that fine ass of his before he closes the bathroom door.

I smile smugly, understanding why Colton says Becks is the best pit crew chief in the business. He sure as hell kept my motor revving with perfection last night.

I roll over on my back and stare at the ceiling as the toilet flushes, and then the shower starts. I hear the muted sounds of the ocean outside and stare at the shadows playing across the ceiling. I exhale as my thoughts turn to last night, my mind recalling and my skin remembering all too well his touch, his taste, his scent.

And then I start giggling. Wave after wave of laughter rolls through me as I realize that this is the first time in a long time I’ve woken up without the constant grief from Lexi’s death heavy on my thoughts and smothering my spirit.

I wipe the smudges from under my eyes, asking myself why today I finally feel like I can get through this: the grief, the loneliness of Lexi being gone.

And even though my mind keeps wandering to the fine-as-fuck man occupying the shower, I push those thoughts away, push him away. There is no possible way I could suddenly feel all of this because of him, and how he treated me last night or how he made me feel.

It was just the physical release that did this to me. It had to be.

Whatever. Who cares about the why, right? Because I’ll take the four orgasms he gave me and do my walk of shame with an enthusiastic bounce in my step.

“So, how do you like running your own business? You keeping busy?”

Becks’s question pulls me from my thoughts as the world outside flies by the passenger side window. I shift in my seat so I can study his profile. God sure as hell didn’t skimp in the looks department on him. So why am I all of a sudden just noticing it?