Page 88 of Breaking All The Rules
“I think we should go to Jack’s and celebrate,” he murmured, planting his chin just above the waistband of her pants and looking up her body, capturing her gaze. “You should wear that yellow dress again.”
She smiled. “Oh, I think we should definitely celebrate.” And she leered at him in a way that could leave him in no doubt as to her immediate need.
He grinned. “So that’s a no to Jack’s?”
Bea slid her hand to Austin’s chin, taking it in a firm grasp. “That’s a no.” Then she pushed him until he was sprawled back against the couch, looking as hot as the Mojave in August.
Reaching for his hat, she placed it on her head, smiled, and straddled his lap…
…
Over the next month, Austin got used to seeing Beatrice dressed and at her desk—yes, she’d bought a desk from IKEA and had it shipped to Credence. It was the opposite of how she’d been that first day in her stained sweats with crazy hair and ice cream dripping down her arm, but that was fine. He’d liked all the faces of Beatrice, from the sweats to the day-of-the-week underwear to the yellow dress and now the businesswoman.
Actually, the businesswoman was kinda hot. He knew from that rambling speech her first day that this wasn’t the LA version of Beatrice, but all that ruthless efficiency—from the way she kept things on her desk just so to how she wrote lists on Post-it notes and got excited when she checked everything off—was a surprising turn-on.
He always brought pie as promised, and she always stopped and shut her laptop down and joined him on the couch or the bed, devouring whatever was in the packet as they chatted about their respective days. He laughed at her latest Cranky Bea designs—although she seemed less invested in them now than the actual campaign itself—and she laughed at whatever tale he had to tell from whatever zany incident he’d had to deal with during his shift.
It was a rare day in Credence when some kind of zany wasn’t going down.
They went to Jack’s for line dancing on Wednesday nights and to the ranch on Sundays. They’d watched all of The Walking Dead now and had moved on to watching Friends. And he was still supplying her with all the orgasms she wanted.
Ostensibly, nothing really changed. To an outsider, it probably just looked like they were settling into a groove. Which should have made Austin happy. But…things were shifting, he could feel it, in the little moments. Like, Beatrice had stopped drinking beer for breakfast. Okay, that was probably wise and advisable, and she was still eating all the pie, but now she brushed off all the crumbs immediately and scooped them into the trash. After sleeping with almost constant crumbs the last couple of months, it had apparently become a problem.
She took a lot of phone calls—a lot. Which of course she would now that she was working on a big project. He understood. No biggie. He could adjust. But the entire time they’d been together, Beatrice had been 100 percent focused on whatever they were doing, and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign of her wavering attention.
And that sat like a lump of lard in his belly.
As did her insistence last week, during his stint of three night shifts, that he slept back at his cabin afterward. Because she was worried she’d disturb his sleep with her phone calls and, he supposed, her key tapping? He’d seen her for a sum total of about six hours those three days and they’d been intimate only once in that time.
The most telling of all, however, was that Beatrice was now wearing the correct day-of-the-week underwear.
He tried not to let any of it bug him. The last thing she needed was a spoiled, whiny man-baby lamenting her lack of attention. Austin wasn’t that guy. He didn’t want to be the guy standing in front of her opportunities, making everything about him and his needs.
Because that was total bullshit.
He just wished that he and Beatrice had talked about the state of their relationship prior to this, instead of studiously not putting a name to it. He’d deliberately never broached it because he hadn’t wanted her to bolt. But it did leave him unsure of where he stood now, and damn it, he’d never been that guy—the insecure one.
And he didn’t like it at all.
All those things weighed on his mind as he made his way up the stairs to her apartment on Wednesday. He’d had to work late to finish off a stack of paperwork that had been building, which had made for a very long day, and he was tired. But he knew, the second he saw Beatrice, that would all lift, and it was line dancing night. They could get out and socialize for a while—kick back, have some fun.
But when he opened the door, she was still sitting at her desk, in her shorts and T-shirt, her glorious red hair he’d last seen loose and tangled and spread over his pillow caught up in a neat little knot at the back of her head.
“Hey,” she threw over her shoulder as she stabbed at the keys on her laptop.
“Hey,” he returned as he dropped a kiss at her nape. “Mmm.” He nuzzled her neck. “You smell good.” She always smelled good.
“So do you,” she murmured, and he could hear the smile in her voice.
It was tempting to stay right here, to slide his hands down the front of her shirt, cup her breasts and feel her nipples harden beneath the brush of his thumb. But if they didn’t shake a tail feather, Beatrice would miss the start of her class. “You wearing that to Jack’s?” he asked as he reluctantly straightened.
“Oh.” Her fingers stopped tapping on the keys, and she looked up at him over her shoulder. “Do you mind if I take a rain check tonight? This has got to be done by Sunday night, and I’m really down to the wire now.”
Austin forced himself to casually shake his head. “Of course not.” Then he forced himself to drop a casual kiss on her head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Thank you.” She smiled at him and slid a hand over his where it rested on his shoulder. “But you should still go and catch up with the regular crowd.”
Austin opened his mouth to decline, then shut it again. Actually, getting out would be a distraction from the bubbles of anxiety that simmered in his gut and demonstrate he had interests outside of…whatever this was. Plus, he didn’t want Beatrice thinking he was looming over her shoulder, impatiently waiting for her to finish so he could have some him time.
