“Alone.”
“Not tonight. Or tomorrow. Or...I guess however long you let me stay.”
Forever. No, she couldn’t say that. Eventually he’d want what she couldn’t give. When it sunk in that she wasn’t very fun in the sack, then he’d be done. But until then... “Usually on my side.”
“Left or right?”
Her heart beat too fast and her mouth felt dry, but she wasn’t a dummy. She wasn’t about to pass up the best offer of her lifetime. As she’d told him, he was her fantasy.
And he wanted to sleep with her, to hold her all through the night.
“How about like this?” Slowly, Yvette lay back down, then curled up against him, her head in the crook of his arm, her hand resting protectively on his bruised ribs. And, oh, God, it felt right. “This okay?”
His voice went husky and deep. “Better than okay.” He tugged her closer, kissed her head and stretched out his other arm to kill the light.
The darkness cocooned them, making it all seem more intimate.
Cannon trailed his fingertips up and down her bare arm. “I almost forgot to tell you. There was some attempted vandalism at the pawnshop.”
She tried to lift up to see him, but he said, “Shh. No damage. Just a kid being an idiot. I ran him off.”
Envisioning graffiti on the walls, she sighed. “I guess with it being empty, that’s going to happen.”
“Probably. So I was thinking our priority should be putting up more lights and maybe an alarm system.”
Enjoying the novelty of conversation in bed while hugged up to Cannon’s hard frame, she gave it a quick thought. “Grandpa left some money. We could use—”
“I’ve got it.”
Comfortable as she was, she knew she had to take a stand. “If we’re not using the cash left to us, then I’ll have to insist on paying my half.”
He stilled, but not for long. “I guess you have a point. We probably need to sit down and go over everything Tipton left. See what our options are.”
“Thank you.”
His hand continued to glide up and down her arm in a tender caress. “Yvette?”
“Hmm?”
“We’re going to work this out. All of it. The house. The shop.” He shifted, pulled her thigh up over his and settled in more comfortably. “Us.”
It hit her then.
Cannon had come to her rescue in the past; he wanted to rescue her again. Old habits, it seemed, were hard to break.
She gave one small nod, whispered, “Okay,” and did her best to hide the disappointment—with herself.
Apparently three years hadn’t really changed anything after all.
* * *
AMAZING HOW QUICKLY you could get used to something. It had been only five days, but she and Cannon had quickly gotten into a steady routine.
They jogged together in the mornings, then often parted ways for the afternoon, although they sometimes met up for lunch at Rowdy’s. He did his thing, she did hers, then they hooked up again in the evening.
And slept together every night.
She loved it. But so much closeness had her on the ragged edge. Maybe him, too. They’d both stayed as busy as possible during the day.
Cannon had worked on changing out some of the security features on the house and adding others to the pawnshop. Once that was done he and Armie had set up a minigym in the basement. His stamina was through the roof. He never seemed to tire, had boundless energy and was the most dedicated person she’d ever known. Other than treating himself a couple of times with fast food, he stuck to a healthy diet-and-exercise program, both at the rec center with the other guys and at home.
In fact, there were a few mornings when he’d already been out of bed and working up a sweat in the basement before she’d even awakened.
Though Cannon seemed to be handling things just fine, the novelty of it all kept her slightly off balance. Showering with Cannon in the house. Seeing him in his boxers in the morning when he left the bed. Watching him shave. Watching him sweat when he did a hard workout.
Each night they had dinner together, then relaxed in the evening with a movie or games on her Wii.
Until he led her off to bed.
To sleep.
Oh, he touched her. A lot. Kissed her, too.
But not the type of touching he’d hinted at.
Never before had she enjoyed this sort of comfortable but charged familiarity with a man. With Cannon around, making new memories, the old memories didn’t have a chance of intruding.
A text sounded on her phone. She glanced at it, but it was Heath. Again. Cannon knew her ex was still bugging her and he didn’t like it, but she’d told him she was handling it, and she would. Rather than text Heath back, Yvette just shoved the phone into her pocket and headed for the garage.
At five o’clock with the sun high overhead, not a cloud in sight, the heat was enough to keep most people indoors. In the garage it was even worse, so she wrestled up the old, heavy door in hopes of catching a stray breeze.
To help keep herself from going nuts, she’d worked her way through much of the stuff her grandpa had stored away. So far she’d inventoried the contents of two of the storage units and had only one more to go. She found a method to his organizational style, realizing that big, bulky things were in one unit, pricey items in another more expensive but also safer facility.
She couldn’t wait to see what he’d put in the last.
But just an hour ago, several boxes had arrived from Vanity. Yvette wanted to know exactly what she had before she got set up, to ensure she didn’t have to move things too many times. The boxes from Vanity were good-size, but she assumed they held numerous smaller items—jewelry, knickknacks, games, that sort of thing.