“Yeah.” I tried to struggle my way up, and Dimitri boosted me all the way to sitting, sliding out from behind me and balancing me as I swung my feet over the side of the bed. “Shit,” I said as realization hit. “I’m still naked.”
He rolled his eyes at me. “Uh-huh. I’ll avert my eyes, princess. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Don’t call me that,” I groused, but halfheartedly. I didn’t have the energy for more. And the floor felt like some indescribably weird and unpleasant lumpy thing under my bizarrely oversensitive feet. Ugh. Fuck my brain.
“You going to make it to the bathroom on your own?”
Well, fine then. “Whatever,” I muttered. “I guess you can call me whatever you want. Just don’t call me Shirley.”
Dimitri laughed and helped me up, and we staggered toward the bathroom.
At least he had good taste in movies. That and his determination to take care of me…well, I’d had worse friends and lovers. Much worse.
We’d make this work.
Chapter 6
It Gets Bigger
That can-do attitude lasted until the late morning of the next day.
I’d slept the rest of Friday plus all night, finally waking up at the unthinkably late hour of eight-thirty on Saturday morning. Usually I had an alarm for six-thirty and woke up half an hour before that. Even on weekends.
Dimitri emerged from the guest room across the hall as soon as I stirred, standing in the hallway between our open bedroom doors and running a hand through his messy hair to get it out of his face.
The bastard looked like an underwear advertisement.
I probably looked like someone had dragged me backward through a couple of hedges.
“Hungry?” he said. “I’m starving. I’m going to figure out if you have anything in your kitchen if you don’t need any help.”
I shook my head, the thought of Dimitri’s “help” in the shower, or with getting dressed, making my blood run cold. Yeah, he might be shockingly sympathetic and nonchalant. But I’d humiliated myself quite enough, thank you.
He nodded and headed downstairs without bothering to put on pants. Thank God my mother would’ve left early this morning. She tended to show up on my doorstep, since I only lived a few houses away.
I managed a shower—and I washed as thoroughly as the day before, determined that nothing was going to stand in the way of getting the mating done and dusted today—and a set of clean clothes, a pair of nice jeans and a polo shirt since I didn’t intend to go out anywhere that required a suit. Dimitri raised his eyebrows at me when I appeared in the kitchen, but he didn’t comment.
So sue me. I didn’t really do casual.
And then he put an omelet in front of me. I fell on it like the ravenous wolf I was, too hungry to even thank him or marvel at the fact that my fridge had contained eggs and cheese.
“You ready?” Dimitri asked as I pushed my plate away and drained the last of my coffee; he’d found the coffee maker, too, and brewed it even stronger than I usually did.
Yeah, maybe we really could make this work. I got up, ignoring the churning of nerves in my belly, and went back upstairs, with Dimitri following close enough behind me that I could feel the heat of him. Part of me wanted to skitter away, but the rest of me…apparently yesterday’s debacle had been enough to condition me to the idea that Dimitri’s body equaled safety.
Would it really be so bad to close my eyes, relax, and let him deal with fucking me? He’d offered.
“Have you ever had anal sex?” I forced the words out before I could think better of them, and it helped that I didn’t have to look him in the eye while I said them.
A low chuckle raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “Probably at least as much as you have. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.”
“What?” I spun around and glared at him, hands on my hips. The way he stared me down, calm and sardonic, reminded me why I’d wanted to have this conversation facing away. Damn it. “You told me you’re not gay! Not even a little bit bi!”
He sighed. “Women also like anal sex. News flash. And I’ve slept with a lot of them. How much action do you get, anyway? You never do anything but work.”
“That’s—that’s—” Totally inaccurate. Not…completely accurate, anyway. Fuck it. “I get laid!”
This time I got a snort of laughter instead of a sigh, and he crossed his massive arms over his broad chest, raising one skeptical eyebrow.
