Namely, that although Brewer’s attic room was as far from mine as you could get in terms of walking distance—down and around the stairs, through the house, out the kitchen door to the little breezeway that led to the garage, and back up another staircase—it was alsoright next to my fucking roomas the crow flew, so to speak.
To put it more succinctly, Brewer’s bed was inches from mine, separated by a single, thin wall.
To say it took an hour for my cock to deflate would not be an exaggeration. Not when I’d spent that hour motionless in my bed, afraid to move or sigh or breathe too hard for fearhewould hearme. Not when I’d spent the majority of that time listening to Brewer shift around on his mattress, murmur to the dog in soothing words I couldn’t make out, and laugh at whatever she was doing in response.
And the torture hadn’t ended there.
My alarm had gone off mere minutes after I managed to fall asleep, but I’d dressed and shuffled downstairs like a zombie to prep for my Zoom with Marjorie, only to collide—literally,forcefully—with the exact same wall of warm muscle I’d spent the night trying to forget.
“Whoa, careful.” One of Brewer’s big hands had wrapped around my biceps. The other had—no word of a lie—reached out to fix my glasses.
I’d mumbled something incoherent, partly because I was half-asleep but mostly because Brewer’s hair was damp, and he was wearing nothing but low-slung sweatpants, and the droplets of water clinging to his chest made rainbow patterns in the early morning light, and he smelled like a combination of my sea-salt and bergamot bodywash and his own Brewer-scent of grass and sawdust.
“Steady now?” he’d asked in that same voice I’d heard all night.
My tongue tied itself into a knot, but my dick had no such qualms. Apparently, at some point the evening before, it had become the victim of an inadvertent Pavlovian experiment, and it rose now, thinking the sound of Brewer’s voice meant it waserection time.
I’d squeaked out a mortifying “yes, thanks” that sounded shriller than a recording played at five times speed and scurried into my office.
But while Brewer had taken the dog for a walk, I’d paced around my office and had a stern talk with myself, which had mostly centered around a single mantra:
I cannot keep doing this.
Yes, Brewer was attractive. While I would never suggest I had a type—the very notion was crass, not to mention outdated—I could admit that I had a… apropensitytoward finding large, muscled guys attractive.
But that didn’t mean anything would come of it. I barely knew Brewer—our conversations had been limited to polite arguments about the house—but what I did know drove me insane. Like most big guys, Brewer didn’t seem to respect someone smaller than him. And while that apparently wasn’t a deal-breaker for my dick, it was forme.
I refused to spend days or weeks tiptoeing around my own home, which meant I needed to put our relationship back on better footing. No more fighting, no more chest touching, no more… Pavlovian dick response. We could be cordial coworkers, of a sort.
After pacing and perseverating for fifteen minutes on how best to accomplish this, I’d finally pulled open my Kitchen Couriers app and ordered croissants to be delivered.
Peace-offeringcroissants.
I blamed my sleeplessness for thinking this was a sound plan.
By the time I heard Brewer’s boots hitting the steps as he came down from the attic after taking Teeny upstairs, I’d arranged the pastries on a plate, poured us each a coffee—Brewer’s in one of his “everyday” china cups—and tried to channel my most professional, most rational, most focused self.
Then he stepped into the kitchen, muttered a surprised “Oh. Hey.”… and just like that, the very air between us trembled and thickened.
At least, it did for me.
Brewer’s broad shoulders stretched his T-shirt, and as he took a cautious step closer, I had the visceral sensation of my space shrinking and heat curling into the room. His scruff-darkened jaw—had I ever fixated on a man’s jaw before? Did this mean I was ajawmannow?—scrambled my concentration.
A beat too late, I forced a bright smile. “Hey. Good morning.”
Brewer’s gaze flicked to the pastries, then back to me. His brows drew together in suspicion. “Did I miss something? Are you having guests over?”
“What? Oh. No, of course not. It’s just breakfast.” I slid his coffee toward him.
He didn’t move except to raise one eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware buying me breakfast was part of our agreement, boss.”
I set my teeth together. Did the man not understand that the first rule of peace offerings was that you didn’ttalkabout peace offerings?
“I didn’t buy you breakfast, per se,” I argued. “I just felt like eating croissants, that’s all. Croissants are serotonin in a bakery box. Practically… practically medicine. And since you’re staying here now, I bought you one, too.”
His gaze dropped to the mountain of food—admittedly, I might have gone slightly overboard, but I’d had to assume a man his size ate as much as my brothers did—then back to me. One corner of his mouth hitched up. “Okay.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I went on. “It’s simple politeness and respect. It’s… fair and right.”
