“Ry, it’s me.”
“Hey, Reese-y piece-y, what’s up?”
“Not much. I’m in Chicago, I quit my job, I’m investigating a major story of financial fraud, and I’m having really great sex with an FBI agent. How you doing?”
“Well, I can’t top you. I’m stuck in New York since the season’s over and I haven’t had sex in like nine days.”
Ryan played minor league baseball and could charm the underwear off a preacher’s wife. He was her favorite brother. “Geez, that’s like a record for you. Listen, you know how you wanted to share my apartment so you didn’t have to have a roommate?”
“And you said no way in hell were you listening to me watching porn every night? Yeah, I remember. ”
“Well, I’m not coming back to New York for a while, so I need you to move in and pay half the rent.”
“Okay.”
That’s why she and Ryan got along so well. He was the ultimate go-with-the-flow guy. Usually that flow was in whatever direction women were heading.
“Rick has my keys.”
“Why does Rick have your keys and not me?”
“Because Rick won’t A—lose them or B—bring strange women into my apartment when I’m out of town.”
“Oh, okay, cool. See ya.”
“Bye, Ry.”
With nothing left to do but wait, Reese hid her suitcase in Knight’s bedroom next to all of Claire’s boxes and bags, hoping it would blend.
Knight’s apartment was small, but lessguythan she would have expected. In the bedroom was a walnut bed, covered by a rich wheat colored duvet. There were a few pictures of his parents and Claire on his dresser and one of him with his ex-wife on their wedding day.
What amazed her was not how ugly Dawn’s dress was, though it honestly was, but the red-hot stab of jealousy that ripped through her with tornado-force winds. Knight wassmiling. He looked happy. He looked at Dawn with love shining in his eyes.
And she was jealous.
Why the hell was that still there? She slapped the picture she had been gripping painfully back down on the dresser, disturbing the thin layer of dust that lay there.
Annoyed with herself, she went into the living room, stomping a little in her knee-high boots for good measure. With the carpeted floors, it wasn’t all that satisfying, but she’d take what she could get.
It had been an indulgence, deciding to blow off the high heels and get boots to wear to Delco instead. With a knee length black skirt and gray sweater, it was business-y enough to get away with it, and with all the laps she did across that boardroom floor, even with the heels the boots were still more comfortable than pumps.
Now she unzipped the boots in annoyance and tossed them on the floor. And if the boots were off, then why the hell did she need tights on? She rolled them down and balled them up, wondering what would happen if she put them in the garbage disposal.
The green-eyed monster had never bitten her this bad before and it was stupid. Plain old what’s-up-with-that stupid. Dawn was his ex-wife. She was remarried. She was pregnant. She looked sexually uptight and was in no way a natural blonde.
Knight was not Reese’s boyfriend. It didn’t matter who he had loved once upon a time. It didn’t even matter who he loved now.
It. Was. Casual.
Only a certain four-chambered valve in her body was not agreeing with that.
FORTY-THREE
Derek knewReese was waiting for him in his apartment.
He didn’t know she would be bent over looking over his shelves, wearing a tight black skirt that was hiking up snuggly between her bare legs, making him go hard in a nanosecond.
“Hi,” she called, still bent over, her hair falling to the left as she tilted her head, her sweater climbing on the opposite side, showing him her creamy flesh.