Husband Sit (Husband #1) (4 page)

“Where
are you?” I called, trying to sound normal, as if my fuck-wittery had never
occurred.

“In
here,” Finn answered, so I followed his voice into a bedroom that housed
another king-sized bed my gaze skidded off, but not before I noticed black
satin sheets and lots of cushions. “This way,” he said, and I kept moving past
the bed, trying not to drip on the black Flokati rug, into an ensuite that was
twice the size of the main bathroom. These guys had their priorities right. The
double shower took up all of one wall and had a big opening in the middle and
two glass partitions at each end. Finn was sitting on the edge of a giant spa
bath that was filling with water and bubbles.

“I
hope you like sandalwood,” he said. “It’s supposed to be soothing.”

I
shrugged. “Who doesn’t?” In truth, I usually found it overpowering. I was more
of a tea rose and ylang ylang girl myself. “I appreciate this,” I said,
starting to feel uncomfortable standing in his bathroom. There were men’s
toiletries on one side of the double-wide vanity and bottles of expensive
perfume on the other. I recognized Dior and Chanel on her side and Morrissey on
his, which I liked. He wasn’t a boring Hugo Boss type.

“Nice
aftershave,” I said, nodding at the Morrissey.

“Katinka
doesn’t like it.”

That
made me smile. “Well you’ve got a month where that doesn’t matter,” I told him
and he nodded, but I could see awkwardness creeping in now. While I’d been in
trouble, he’d been relaxed. Now that I was firing again, he was getting
defensive.

“I’ll
be good with this now,” I said and held up a hand. He looked relieved as he
stood. “Thanks for getting it started,” I added, “and for sharing the
bathroom.” He nodded and left, then I was alone—just me and my sunburn.

I
soaked in the tub until the tepid water chilled, then I dabbed myself dry on a
fluffy black towel and padded back into my own bathroom where I spread coconut
butter from my ankles to the back of my neck. There was a part in the middle of
my back I couldn’t reach but with a bit of ingenuity and the end of a
back-scrubber, I managed to spread the moisturizer around, even if I couldn’t
rub it in.

“Are
you okay in there?” Finn asked from outside my door, sounding seriously
reluctant. “With the...cream, I mean.”

“Fine,”
I called back. “I’m a contortionist. No problems.”

“Good!”
Even through a closed door, I could feel the relief in his voice. It was only
when I heard him mutter, “
Contortionist
,” as he walked away that I
realized I’d inadvertently slipped innuendo into the conversation.

The
only thing Katinka would thank me for that day.

Finally,
I’d rubbed in as much of the cream as I could. The rest clung to my tee-shirt
when I put it on, but there was nothing I could do about that so I headed out
to the kitchen looking for water, knowing hydration was important. It was
growing dark outside the windows, but still an hour off our appointed dinner
time of seven pm. I saw Finn in the adjoining lounge area, sprawled on a giant
leather recliner with his feet up and a pair of headphones on, watching cricket
on the largest television screen I’d ever seen.

“Is
that Hilfenhaus bowling?” I called across the breakfast bar. He turned to me in
surprise. “Who’s bowling?” I asked him again.

He
pulled off his headphones. “Watson,” he said. “Do you like cricket?”

“Shane
or Mark?”

He
grinned. “Guess you do.” He hit volume on the remote so the commentators came
on softly. Finn talked over them, “It’s Shane and we’re behind. We need the
kiwis all out in the next twenty overs or they win.”

“Easy,”
I said and opened the fridge to grab the bottle of sav blanc I’d put there
earlier. “Want one?” I unscrewed the lid.

“Sure.”
He put his headphones down on the coffee table and came into the kitchen to get
glasses. He’d taken off his boots somewhere along the line and his feet were
bare, like mine.

That
warmed me down low. I liked guys barefoot in jeans, especially this guy, but I
kept that to myself.

“Wine
glasses are in here,” he said, and opened a high cupboard beside me.

“Great.”
I waggled the bottle and waited for him to get the glasses, but a second later
as he reached up I caught my breath, checking out the strip of skin he’d
exposed between the low-slung band on his jeans and his rising tee-shirt. It
was tanned, and I had a sudden terrible urge to push him back against the
counter top and lick it.

I
distracted myself from that by wondering if they sunbathed naked. Not that I
wanted to add a burnt ass to my problems, but I belatedly realized I could have
done that myself. The pool area was private. Oh well, next time.

“Thanks,”
I said as he put the elegant flutes down. I filled them to the top because I
can’t be bothered getting up every five minutes to refill. “Ice bucket?”

“I’ll
bring it.” He went hunting in another cupboard so I took a slurp out of each
glass because I’d overfilled them, and then walked them to the coffee table and
plunked them on coasters. A minute later, I’d deciphered the remote and hiked
up the volume. Then I settled in for a night of barracking.

“Out!
Goddamn it that was
out!
” I shouted at the teev an hour later, dinner
completely forgotten. “Bloody third umpire.”

“Come
on!” Finn teased. “It hit the bat. You saw the hotspot.”

“Bullshit,”
I said, but I was laughing.

He
grinned back. “You just want it out because you’ve got a crush on the bowler.”

“Oh
you liar!” I said, but he was on a roll.

“I
bet you’ve got that Men of Cricket calendar, and you keep it open on April even
though it’s only February.”

“He’s
on the September page, actually,” I said. “But that’s beside the point.”

“
Jill
loves Hilfenhaus
,” he sang, pointing at me until I slapped at his finger.

“Shut
up and watch the cricket,” I said, mock-grumpy. “You’re distracting me from the
game.” I turned back to pick up my wine, but the glass was empty. “Were we
planning to eat tonight?” I asked him. “Or just get pissed?”

He
poured the last of the bottle into my glass and got up to grab another, giving
me an up-close-and-personal view of his very nice ass encased in low-slung
jeans. “I’ll ring for a pizza.” He headed for the kitchen.

“I’m
a vegetarian!” I called over the voices of the commentators.

“Liar,”
he said, pulling pizza menus out of a drawer.

“No
bullshit. I really am.”

He
stopped what he was doing. “You don’t eat meat at all?”

The
cricket cut to an ad break then and there were three long seconds of silence,
enough time for us both to register what he’d just said.

I
looked across at him standing in the kitchen, with an embarrassed look on his
face.

“Lucky
I didn’t tell Katinka that before she hired me,” I said, and we stared at each
other for another two seconds before we both cracked up. I mean really. Big
laughs. I had tears in my eyes and I couldn’t stop. The cricket restarted and I
was hiccupping breaths, waving at him to shut up, even when he came back with a
new bottle of wine, but we just had to look at each other and we’d laugh. It
was terrible.

Then
he tried to order the pizza, “We’d like one thin and crispy vegetarian—” and it
started all over again. I swear, I’ve never laughed so much in my life.

In
fact, I wished it would go on forever. But eventually the cricket finished—we
won, yay!—the pizza box was full of crumbs and the second bottle of sav blanc
was empty.

“Bed
time,” he said, standing up, looking sexy and demanding all of a sudden. “I’ve
got work tomorrow.”

We’d
stopped laughing by then, but I was pissed and likely to say anything. “I think
the pillow is broken on my bed. Can I sleep in yours?”

He
grabbed my hands and pulled me onto my wobbly legs. “Only if I’m not in it.”

“S’fine,”
I replied, letting myself be led down the hallway. “I had a scary experience in
that other bathroom and I think I’ve got post trauma . . . thingie . . . about
it. What if I need to pee in the night?”

“The
toilet is in a separate room.” He stopped there on the way, holding me up while
he leant in and switched on the light. “See. I’ll leave the light on so you can
find it.”

“I
need a visa to go that far.” I frowned at the long, narrow toilet room with its
pedestal at the other end. Stupid swanky houses. I looked back up into his face
with its patient expression. “That second bottle of wine was your idea.”

“We’ll
argue about that in the morning.”

“Will
we?” I bumbled along beside him. “I was hoping you’d be too pissed to remember
any of this. Me being a fuckwit and all.”

He
smiled at that, showing off white teeth I suddenly wanted to slide my tongue
over. “Here we are.” He stopped outside my bedroom. “Can you find your way in?”

“Sure.
Put my hands on the walls and I’ll feel my way in.” I waved my arms around in
front of me.

“I’ll
walk you in.” He turned on the light. I stumbled in beside him, then leant my
head on his chest while he pulled back the covers. “In you hop,” he said, so I
tried to bounce but I landed with a flop.

“You
really are a fuckwit,” he said, smiling as he pulled the covers up to my chin.

I
lay there grinning stupidly up at him. “That’s the nicest thing any man’s ever
said to me.”

“Sweet
dreams,” he said, and he leant down to kiss me on the forehead. That seemed
like the perfect way to end the evening, so I closed my eyes and caught my
breath up as if I was going to sigh. But somehow while I was concentrating on
the niceness of being tucked in, I missed the moment of decision he must have
had, because the next thing I felt were his lips on mine. And they were every
bit as dreamy and soft as I’d imagined they’d be. Before I could stop myself, I
let out that held breath and slipped my tongue out to brush against his.

“
Jesus
,”
he whispered, but I didn’t want the kissing to stop so I grabbed his shoulders
and pulled, which he could have resisted. He was bigger than me, but he let
himself be dragged down onto the bed and then my fingers were in his
dreadlocks, cupping his head, holding it still so I could keep on kissing him
gently and wetly and oh so sweetly.

He
groaned after that, and I couldn’t feel his body through the quilt but I
figured I was turning him on. “This is wrong,” he whispered, but I knew he
wanted to, and that purely feminine part of me that he’d dented with
I’m not
going to sleep with you
, felt smugly satisfied.

“You’re
not fucking me, you’re just kissing me,” I whispered back. “I’ve had pain
today. It’s my turn for pleasure,” and I kissed him some more, long dreamy
kisses that lulled me into forgetting my sunburned back and my aching wrist,
kisses that relaxed my body so completely that they got softer and softer, and
then without realizing what was happening, I drifted into a deep and blissful
slumber.

The
next morning my head was full of hammers and my tongue felt like the bottom of
a cold porridge bowl. But there was no one lying beside me and my pink pajamas
hadn’t moved in the night so I was reasonably sure Finn hadn’t taken advantage
of my convenient drunkenness.

“Blah,”
I said and dragged myself out, looking to rinse and spit. After a bumpy trip
down the hallway, I found the toilet again and relieved myself, wondering why
on earth anyone needed a toilet room to be ten feet long. It was ridiculous,
and I scowled at the length of shiny tiled floor while I peed, thinking it was
just as well I wasn’t cleaning this place. Then I got myself organized and
staggered from the toilet into the bathroom to wash my hands. Immediately that
was done I grabbed my toothbrush out of my toiletries bag and loaded it up with
way too much toothpaste before shoving it in my mouth and poking around in an
uncoordinated effort to get rid of the porridge sensation.

Bad
idea. That made me gag, and it was only my complete aversion to vomiting that
stopped half a pizza being regurgitated. Instead, a mouthful of foamy
toothpaste exited on a
“Yah,”
to land on my foot. I stood looking at it,
thinking I should just go back to bed.

“You
okay?”

I
looked up at the doorway and saw Finn in a red tee-shirt and jeans, trying not
to smile at my rabid dog impersonation. I spat into the sink and wiped the
worst of the froth off my face onto a hand towel which I then used to clean my
foot. When I’d straightened again, I shot him my best imperious glance and
said, “How are you so perky?” And not only perky, but totally scrumptious from
the top of those butterscotch dreads to the bare toes poking out of his jeans,
not to mention every lickable inch in between. It hurt my head to look at him.

“Two
aspirin and a glass of milk before bed. Works every time.”

I
pulled a face but made a mental note to try it sometime. Then I remembered he
should be looking guilty, not perky. “Aha!” I said and pointed a wobbly finger
at him. “You kissed me last night, Mr. I’ll Be Faithful To My Wife.”