“I need to find Axel and Drake.”
“You wanna go home already?” The disappointment in Callahan’s tone tugged at me.
Glancing at the clock on the microwave, I discovered it was after one in the morning. “It’s way past my bedtime.”
Accepting my decision to call it a night, he laced his fingers through mine, his rough palm leaving tingles, and led me out to the back yard where a spirited game of cornhole was in full swing. From the intensity of the players and spectators, money definitely played a part. Gambling wasn’t high on my friends’ radar, so I wasn’t surprised they weren’t in the back yard. Plus, it was damn cold outside. They weren’t among the beer pong players in the dining room, and we’d already established they weren’t in the kitchen when we grabbed our water.
We ambled back into the living room, but with so many people dancing and drinking, it would probably take us an hour to wind our way through to find my friends. Tugging on Callahan’s hand, I halted our progress and pulled him back into the relative quiet of the kitchen. Retrieving my phone from my pocket, I gave Axel a quick call that went straight to voicemail. My text went unanswered as well.
“Follow me.”
He wove us through the crowd to the stairs. When I balked, he said, “Trust me? Please?”
With a nod, I followed him up to the second story where we walked down a hallway past a couple of closed doors and one that opened right as we reached it. A pair of sweaty people stepped out of the bathroom. From his disheveled hair and her flushed cheeks, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what they’d been doing in there.
“Hey, ’Han. Great party.” The guy offered his fist, and Callahan bumped it.
“Glad you’re enjoying it.”
The girl stared at Callahan as if she’d like to haul him into the bathroom next.
After an awkward moment, the pair headed back downstairs while we continued down the hall. When we stopped at the door on the end, he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked it. He flipped on a lamp on a table beside a king-size bed that took up most of the space and faced me.
“Is this your room?”
“Yeah.”
“Why do you lock it?”
He slipped behind me and closed the door. “It’s damned inconvenient when you throw a party in your own house and can’t bring a girl to your own room because some other dude is banging someone in your bed.”
I blinked.
“After that happened to each of us during the first couple of parties we threw last year, we all put locks on our bedroom doors.” He nodded in the direction of the hallway. “There’s a bathroom downstairs too, but you’ll notice Buckford had a girl up here. No doubt he tried the knobs on every door along the hall before he settled on taking her to the can.” A massive eye roll accompanied his words. “Anyway, it’s quiet in here. You can wait in peace while I go look for your friends.”
“How did you know… ?”
“That you needed a break from the masses? I pay attention, Jamaica.” Something hot flashed in his eyes then he was at the door. “I’ll be back in a few. If I can’t find them, I’ll take you home, okay?”
“Thanks.”
As if by habit, he turned the lock on the door on his way out. Considering all the noise downstairs, his room was blessedly quiet. The lamp on the nightstand threw enough light to see most of the room. Curious, I glanced around. He kept his space neat. I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did. A black duvet with dove-gray swirls covered his massive bed. A closet with double doors flanked the door into his room. His desk sat beneath the window facing the street. Books were stacked on one side of it, while his laptop took up the middle. In the corner of the room to the left of his desk was another table holding a forty-six-inch TV, games console, and controllers.
Open dove-gray curtains allowed the full moon to bathe the room in silver. A thick rug matching the duvet covered most of the hardwood floor. A pair of slippers tossed haphazardly in front of the closet was the only “mess.” Well, that and a bulletin board affixed to the wall above the nightstand. Stepping closer to it, I noted his class schedule, workout schedule, game schedule, and something that listed “appearances,” whatever that meant. Next to the schedules he’d tacked a collage of photos of him and guys from the team, him playing football, and several shots of what could only be his family.
From the looks of it, Callahan came from nice, middle-class people—mom and dad, two sisters, and a brother. A wistful sigh escaped me. All my life I’d wanted siblings. I’d also wanted a dad who spent more than a day or two with us every month when he rolled through town in his semi and trailer. When I turned sixteen, even those days disappeared. Mom’s only answer when I asked why we never saw Dad anymore was sadness. I had the feeling she didn’t have a clue either. After a while I stopped asking.
Thinking about my family left me even more tired than I already was. I sat on the edge of Callahan’s soft, massive bed. He’ll be back any minute, I thought. But as the bed sagged invitingly under my weight, I decided I could chance a lie-down. After kicking off my boots, I lay on my side, intending to close my eyes only for a minute until he showed up with Axel.
A sound like a snort woke me. Between the furnace at my back and the duvet covering me, I was toasty warm even though I was only in my underwear and camisole.
Wait. What the hell? How was I mostly naked in Callahan’s bed spooning with him? His big hand was splayed over my belly, holding me close to—Oh, fuck. Tucked up tight against the crack of my ass was his morning wood. Slowly, carefully, so as not to wake him, I eased my lower body away from his. The hand covering my belly tightened.
A sleepy voice at my neck said, “Hey, Island Girl, the alarm doesn’t go off for another hour. Go back to sleep.” He snuggled me closer.
Once again, I tried to scoot my ass away from his erection, but he pulled me back.
“Callahan, how did I—?”
“Go back to sleep. I’ll explain in the morning,” he mumbled.
“But you’re—” I cleared my throat and tried again. “A certain part of you is wide-awake.”
An exasperated growl rumbled on the pillow. “Jamaica, this is only our second date. I never put out before the third one.” He nuzzled the back of my head and splayed his big hand fully over my belly. “Go. To. Sleep.”
After a few minutes, his breathing evened out, and though he didn’t let go of me, his body relaxed along my back, except for his cock. He didn’t seem concerned about it or inclined to push me for sex even though we were snuggled up tight together.
The room was as dark as the inside of a cave, and I was warm and comfy in the nicest bed I’d ever lain in. Only a few minutes later, it seemed, I cracked my eye open when a shaft of light hit it at the same time as the rich aroma of fresh-brewed coffee tickled my nostrils. Groggily, I pushed myself up on my elbows, blinking furiously at the light streaming into the room from the hall. A fully dressed Callahan O’Reilly knelt beside the bed, sipped from a steaming mug of morning ambrosia, and offered it to me.
“Sleep well?” he asked, a twinkle in his eye.
I sat up against the pillows, pulling the covers over my chest. “Your bed is way more comfortable than a dorm mattress.” Taking the mug from him, I sipped and savored delicious black coffee.
The bed sagged with his weight as he sat beside me, took the mug from me, and sipped from it. Sharing morning coffee was oddly as intimate as waking up in the middle of the night spooning with him.
“Um, how is it that I came into this room fully dressed and woke up in my underwear?”
He chuckled. “Funny story. When I couldn’t find your friends, I came back up here to tell you I’d take you home. Only you were sacked out on top of the covers, snoring softly.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I narrowed my eyes. “I do not snore.”
His eyes danced as he handed the mug back to me. “Okay, breathing audibly.”
Exaggeratedly tilting my head, I conveyed exactly what I thought of his observation. Lifting the coffee to my lips with one hand, I gave him a “go on” gesture with the other.
A naughty grin tipped up the corner of his mouth. “You were out. I tried and tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t budge. So I slipped your jeans and sweater off so we’d both be more comfortable, slid you under the covers with me, and went to sleep too.” He took the mug back, drank from it, and said, “Now it’s time for you to get your sexy ass out of bed so I can drive you home on my way to watch film from yesterday’s game.”
I nodded. “That’s on your schedule.”
“You read my schedule?”
“What did you expect? It was taking you forever to come back with Axel.” I grabbed the mug back but was disappointed to discover only dregs left in the bottom of it. “At least I didn’t go through your desk or open your closet.”
“Good plan on the closet. Who knows how long it would have taken me to dig you out of the avalanche of shit I stuffed in there?” he teased.
“Hmmph. I bet your closet is as neat and organized as the rest of your room.”
A slow smile spread over his face. “You really didn’t snoop, did you?”
Furrowing my brow, I answered, “I told you I didn’t.”
Reaching out, he fingered a wayward curl, straightened it, then let it bounce back with the rest. No doubt I looked an absolute fright, but the expression on Hotshot’s face said he didn’t mind. “Too bad this is only our second date. And I have to be at the field in a few minutes.”
“Why?” After our pillow talk in the middle of the night, I think I knew the answer, but for some perverted reason, I wanted to hear him say it.
“Because you are pure temptation sitting in my bed in nothing but sexy lacy panties and a satin cami.”
His deep, sensuous laugh when I instinctively pulled the covers higher up my chest left a certain part of me tingly. I desperately wanted to cross my legs at the sensation, which would have given him far too much info about how he affected me.
“Speaking of my clothes, where are they?”
He nodded in the direction of his desk where my jeans and sweater were folded neatly over the chair.
With a shooing motion of my hand, I said, “Do you mind letting me dress?”
“Not at all.” He stayed put where he sat on the edge of the bed.
Exaggerating a long-suffering sigh, I said, “You have to leave the room.”
His brow shot up. “Why? I’ve already seen you in your underwear.”
“Callahan.” I drew out the full three syllables of his name through gritted teeth.
He laughed again, but he stood and took the now empty coffee mug from me. “My private bathroom is through there.” He pointed to a door in the corner of the room that I hadn’t noticed on my first inspection.
“Thanks.”
“Five minutes, Island Girl. Otherwise, you won’t get breakfast,” he warned as he let himself out of the room.
As soon as the door closed, I jumped out of bed and snagged my clothes on the way to his en suite bathroom. It wouldn’t have surprised me if he conveniently “forgot” something and needed to return in time to catch me hopping around on one foot as I tugged on my jeans.
Like the rest of his room, his bathroom was clean and tidy. Towels hung on a rack above the toilet beside the shower. No tub, but the shower looked big enough to accommodate a person Callahan’s size. The smooth white tile in the shower extended around the room.
Razors and shaving cream were lined up beside a cup with a lone toothbrush resting in it on the tiny vanity. A half-used tube of toothpaste, which he’d squeezed in the middle like a barbarian, lay beside the cup. On the opposite side of the sink was a hairbrush. Rather than the medicine cabinet one would expect in an old house, an oval mirror hung above the sink. Out of curiosity, I opened the cupboard below the sink to discover extra toilet paper and bath linens and nothing else.
From what I could see, Callahan didn’t hide anything. For a second I thought about his closet, but that five-minute warning to avoid missing breakfast changed my mind. After using the facilities, I hastily dressed in yesterday’s clothes and wrinkled my nose at the faint stink of beer on my sweater. I stared longingly at his toothbrush, but in the end I stuck my mouth under the faucet and settled for rinsing it out. Without a shower and my pick, my hair was a lost cause. Still, I finger-combed it the best I could and exited the bathroom.
I found my boots beside his desk. Parking my ass on the chair, I was tugging them on when he rapped once on the door and walked in. Good thing I was dressed.
“Damn. You’re quicker than I thought you’d be.” His eyes danced.
I bared my teeth at him. “Because I didn’t trust you not to pull something like walk in on me without warning.”
His unabashed laughter twitched a grin out of me.
Extending a hand, he said, “Breakfast is ready. If we hustle, we can beat Finn and Bax to it.”
Without thinking, I slipped my hand into his big, warm one and instantly regretted it as tingles raced up and down my arm. I did not need to react to this man. I absolutely did not.
But I couldn’t seem to help it.
We tripped down the stairs into the living room. A slight stench of spilled beer permeated the air, but the space was stunningly clean. No red cups, no aluminum cans, no sign the house had been heaving at the seams with partygoers until only a few hours ago. The kitchen was spotless. The keg had disappeared, along with the chips bags and takeout pizza boxes that littered the counters and the table in the breakfast nook. Plus, the room smelled like heavenly bacon and toast.
I stared at Callahan in wonder. “Where’s the mess?” slipped out before I could think.
The grin on his face said he wasn’t offended. “It’s how we roll, babe. The soberest members of the team who are still at the party at the end help usher out the stragglers and clean up the big stuff.” Cuffing the back of his neck with his free hand, he glanced away. “I might have done a bit of scrubbing after I came downstairs while you still slept.”
A smile stretched my lips. “I appreciate the effort.” My stomach chose that moment to react to the scent of breakfast. Clearing my throat, I said, “You said something about breakfast?”
He let me go to grab a hot pad and open the oven door to reveal a platter of bacon, a massive bowl of scrambled eggs, and a mountain of toast on a plate. Over his shoulder, he said, “Plates are in the top cupboard to the right of the sink. Utensils in the drawer directly below it.”
In a jiff, I had the table set for two while Callahan laid the food out on trivets in the middle of it. He told me to sit while he gathered hot sauce, jam, and salt and pepper. Next, he poured two generous glasses of orange juice from a pitcher in the fridge and brought them over to the table.
“Um, this is a lot of food for two people.”
A snort escaped him. “It won’t be the two of us for long. Dig in.”
As if he’d conjured them with his words, Finn and Bax crashed down the stairs and fought for who would come through the kitchen door first. It would have been comical except for the real possibility one or both of them might land face-first in the middle of the table. Callahan cleared his throat, and the two of them clued in that I was in the room. In slow motion, they disentangled from each other and straightened their T-shirts then Bax graciously stepped aside to let Finn precede him into the room at a more sedate speed.
As he helped himself to coffee, Finn said, “Good morning, Jamaica.” A smirk followed. “I thought the two of you were only study buddies.”
Bax nudged him with an elbow. “Callahan takes his studies serious. You know that.” He turned away, suppressed laughter at his joke almost choking him. When he managed to regain a bit of control, he turned back and said, “Good morning, Jamaica.”
Gesturing toward his T-shirt with my empty fork, I said, “I see you believe in truth in advertising.”
He glanced down at his shirt which read “My brain is giving me the silent treatment today.”
“Ha, ha.” Focusing on Callahan, he added, “Your girl is hilarious.”
“I’m not his girl.”
“Yeah, you are,” Hotshot said.
Ignoring his nonsense, I continued. “I accidentally fell asleep here last night when my friends disappeared on me.”
“We’ll discuss your confusion later,” Callahan said. “When we don’t have an audience.”
I glanced at his friends whose eyes followed the conversation between us like a tennis ball during a match. When my gaze found his again, his brow raised in challenge while a hint of desire lurked in his eyes.
His girl? What the hell was he talking about?
I guess my lack of immediate response gave his roommates the green light to gather their own plates and utensils since the show was apparently over. The two of them crowded around the table and wasted no time mounding eggs, bacon, and toast on their plates. Good thing I dished up my plate before they arrived. In a few short minutes, and without conversation, breakfast concluded. Only half a piece of toast remained on the plate as well as the eggs and toast I was still eating. I was normally a slow eater, but Callahan’s words swirling in my head had slowed me down even more than usual.
Three pairs of eyes stared at me and then at my plate. “What?”
“Are you going to finish that?” Bax asked, his tone hopeful.
“I planned to, yes.”
“Oh.” He conveyed a world of disappointment in that one syllable.
“Just because I like to taste my food rather than vacuum it up like an industrial-size machine doesn’t mean I don’t want to finish it.” I pointed to the toast still on the plate in the middle of the table. “That’s up for grabs.”
“But it’s better if it has some eggs on top.” Bax gave me puppy-dog eyes as he slowly reached a hand toward my plate.
I stabbed that sneaky hand with my fork. “Make more eggs then. I’m eating the ones on my plate.”
“Ouch!” Rubbing his hand, he addressed Hotshot who was cracking up. “Why do you have to like a feisty one?”
Callahan caught my eye. “Because she’s fun.”