Grinning, he gave her a none-too-subtle once-over. “I like looking at them. Doesn’t mean I like needles.”
“Wimp.”
“Whatever.”
He stood there gazing at her for a moment too long. A flicker of self-consciousness broke through her haze as she remembered herself. Sure, he’d held her with an unusual amount of tenderness, but this was typically the part of the evening where she picked up her clothes and beat a dignified retreat.
Except before she could act on the impulse, his smile deepened. He crossed back over to the bed and climbed onto it, lying on his side, curled around her. His fingertips grazed her neck where her tattoo spilled over. “I like looking at them a lot,” he said, intensity shading his tone.
Too much intensity. She glanced down, away from his eyes. “Yeah, I could kinda tell.” It was supposed to be a joke. He’d been so obviously turned on by all the things she’d done to her body. But it came out weak.
“Hey.”
She stilled, expecting him to say something else. A second passed and then another. But instead of speaking, he tucked two fingers under her chin and tipped her head up.
When his lips met hers, it was soft. Gentle. She let him deepen it, but the pace stayed slow. The warm brushes of his mouth were building toward something, though—something that wasn’t sex. Overwhelmed, she slumped against the pillow and closed her eyes.
He gave her a second to get herself together. The bed jostled as he half sat up, grabbing the thin cover of the sheet and dragging it over their lower halves. She accepted it, tucking the fabric under her arms so her tits weren’t hanging out before opening her eyes.
Even partially covered, he was gorgeous, his warm skin a contrast to the white of the sheet. He lay on his side, propped up on his elbow, his other hand resting in the scant inches of space between them. Expression soft, he gazed at her, not seeming to expect anything. But something about him said he’d accept whatever she decided to volunteer.
“Hi,” she said. She wasn’t embarrassed, not exactly, but this wasn’t usually a part of sex for her. She didn’t know how it was supposed to go.
Reaching across her body, he swept her hair from her eyes. His fingertips lingered on the edge of her face for a moment. Just when it threatened to become uncomfortable, he dropped his hand, moving it to rest on her stomach instead.
He nudged her ankle with his. “So how was your week?”
“Really?” The word was out of her mouth before she could stop it, a barked-out half-laugh of a question. All that intimacy and kissing and orgasming, and now he wanted to have a normal conversation? Like this?
Forget that they’d scarcely had a normal conversation in all the time they’d known each other, not without other people pushing them along. They’d had weird, brief moments of oversharing, and arguments, but not small talk.
His eyebrows rose to match hers. “Why not?”
“It’s just…” After a moment, she settled on, “Weird.”
“Not really. We haven’t seen each other in a few days. It’s pretty typical for people to want to catch up after that.”
“Is it pretty typical for them to tear each other’s clothes off first?”
“Typical is a strong word.” Consciously or not, he stroked his thumb just under the curve of her breast through the sheet. “In my limited experience, though, people are usually even more interested in how each other are doing if clothes-ripping-off is also a thing they like to do.”
She shook her head. “Your limited experience is really different from mine.”
Sadness darkened his eyes, but in the end all he said was, “Humor me.”
“Okay.” She drew out the end of the word. “Um, my week was pretty boring. I worked a lot.”
“Shocking.”
“No, like, a lot a lot.” She twisted a few strands of her hair between her forefinger and her thumb. “Unhealthy a lot.”
She really didn’t want to have to fill in the blanks. The work had been work, because that was what she did. But the unhealthy part of it had all been his fault.
He seemed to hear enough of what she didn’t say, because his expression softened, a soft smile curling his lips. “Okay. More work than normal, even for you. Check. Get anything cool done?”
“Yeah, actually.” And she was preparing to self-censor, except she didn’t have to with him, did she? Letting herself relax, she recapped some of the progress she’d made with her project, told him about her observing run. As she did, she shifted to rest her hand atop his on her belly. “It wasn’t as much fun, though. Babysitting the telescope alone.”
And hadn’t that been a surprise? After all those team projects where she’d fought for the right to work by herself. Now, all of a sudden, she was eager for a partner?
Adam nodded, tapping a finger against her abdomen. “I’ve got another session scheduled with it this week. You wanna come and keep me company?”
“I guess. If I’ve got time.” Inside, her heart leapt at the chance.
“Cool.”
She hesitated before she spoke again. She didn’t have a whole lot else to say about herself, and all week long she’d been wanting to know… had been dying to hear about…
In the end, she decided to ease into it. “How about you? How was your week?”
He gave her a laugh that was almost too easy, too casual. “Not that different from yours, actually. You know how conferences are.”
Oh. So he was going to dance around the subject, too.
She let him, for a little bit. His descriptions of the lectures he’d attended were interesting enough, and there were a couple of papers she’d have to look up when she got into the office tomorrow to learn more. But that wasn’t what she’d been asking.
When he started to wind down, she walked her fingertips up his wrist, watching her own movements instead of his eyes. “And after the conference?”
“Oh. Right.” The motion of his throat, bobbing as he swallowed, drew her gaze. “Shannon came.”
Jo had kind of figured as much, and really, it wasn’t as if she didn’t already know at least part of the outcome. Adam was here with her, after all, naked and postcoital. But uneasiness still plagued her, making her ribs tight. “How did that go?”
“Really well, actually.” His voice went fond and just a little bit wry, and it made her chest squeeze harder. “We had a good time. Went out to dinner, had ice cream, walked around the city.”
The affection in his tone was what did it. Jo wasn’t going to overreact, wasn’t going to screw this whole thing up. But this was important. “Did you fuck her?”
His gaze snapped to hers, creases forming between his eyes, and it was like he hadn’t even considered the question, much less that she would actually want to know the answer. “What? No.”
“It’s a valid question.”
“Of course it is. But… but how could you…” He visibly took measures to calm himself, breathing out through his nose and closing his eyes for a second before sitting up and turning so he faced her. “Believe me,” he said, looking down at her with fire in his gaze, “we would not be lying here like this if I had.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know that?” For all she knew, they could have decided to break it off after getting it on, or figured they’d have one more go at each other before they parted ways.
Or their breakup could have been a whole lot less final than he’d implied.
She squirmed. She didn’t like him having the vantage point over her that he did. Keeping the sheet wrapped around herself, she scooted up the bed, coming to sit with her shoulders braced against the headboard. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her feet.
“Jo.” He paused for a beat, waiting before repeating her name. “Jo.”
Ugh, he was doing that thing again where he wanted her to look at him before he told her something. Begrudgingly, she lifted her gaze.
It was such a subtle change. Talking about Shannon, he’d had this warmth to him, this soft affection, but it had been directed at nothing. He’d been looking off into some middle distance. Now all of that was trained on her, layered with that same intensity from before that had made her want to pull away.