What's Yours is Mine (13 page)

Jennifer grinned at her, a bit wicked. “How does that work exactly at your place? It’s a one-bedroom unit, right?”

“It has a couch. Will sleeps there.” Or did. Once. That first night.

“Uh-huh.”
 

Darcy got up, grabbing her laptop bag. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll work in the living room.”
 

Jennifer followed her. “What exactly happened, anyway? Janet was vague, just said there was a mix-up in the housing. How does that even happen? How did you end up in the same condo?”

“Who knows? Funny, though, isn’t it?” Darcy tried to smile.
 

“Do you hate it? Living with a guy you dislike?” Jennifer leaned in, far too eager.

“What makes you think I don’t like Will?”

Jennifer looked almost sheepish. “I have insomnia. Ever since… Well, anyway. The other night, around three a.m., I went outside to get some air. And I heard yelling coming from your condo.” She shrugged. “Then Janet said it was urgent that the mix-up be resolved, so I figured…”
 

“Maybe we’re ex-lovers, and now we’re getting back together.”

Jennifer gave her an
uh-huh
look. But was that really so out of the question? In an alternate universe, maybe they’d have gotten together instead of talking on Skype, and had lots of mind-blowing sex in between bonding over childhood trauma, career goals, and favorite movies. Yeah, and then he’d have found—or thought he found—the triclosate, flipped out, broken up with her, stolen the—
 

Wait. What exactly was the chronology there? When had Will taken off with the money? And why, exactly? Was it related to the contaminant? Stunned, she realized that yes, she did believe Will. Whatever had actually gone down, he truly thought her Slippery Elm lotion had been adulterated with noxious carcinogens designed to make the product more user-friendly, illegally altering it from the clean, organic lotion buyers expected from Golden Organics.
 

Had he lashed out in retaliation? Stealing from the company was, of course, all kinds of wrong, but…had it been about her? About what he believed she’d done?
 

Jennifer was giving her an odd look. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just thinking. Do you really want to sleep with Will?”

Jennifer choked. “You’re direct, aren’t you?”

“Do you?”

The other woman contemplated Darcy. “Would you mind if I did?”

“He’s not my property. If he wants you, you have my blessing.” Darcy ignored the pang in her chest at the thought and only belatedly realized her eyelid had started twitching.

~*~

Crouching by the bathroom sink, Will dumped the contents of the sink trap into the trash basket and peered inside. Amid the matted flotsam, something glinted: a ring. When he wiped it with a rag, it sparkled expensively. It was set with a medium-size, nicely faceted diamond and looked an awful lot like an engagement ring.
 

After he closed the pipe back up, Will brought the ring to Jennifer, who was in her living room, talking with Darcy. Both of them looked tense, like cats deciding whether to fight or be friends. He wordlessly handed Jennifer the ring.
 

She held it between her fingers, but tentatively, as if it might sting her.
 
“I don’t know why I asked you to get this thing. I should have let it drop all the way down into the sewer and get washed away in the ocean.”

Darcy gave Jennifer a sympathetic look. “Bad breakup, I gather?”

“You could say that.” Jennifer slid the ring on her finger, an unconscious gesture.
 

“But you still love him,” Will said, gazing at her hand.
 

Jennifer hastily slid the ring off and set it on the desk. “Not really, no.”

Will exchanged quick glances with Darcy
.
 
She’s
lying,
her look said.
 

Let her,
he said back.
It’s easier for her to think she hates the guy.
 

Darcy nodded, her troubled gaze echoing the tightening in his chest. It had been much easier to hate. But that wasn’t working so well anymore.

Chapter Ten

Jianyu got back to Darcy after dinner California time. His response was one single line of email:

Supply sheet missing. Can’t answer question.
 

Darcy snorted. Jianyu acted like he had to pay for email by the word.

Will glanced over from his perch at the dining table, eyebrows raised. She almost told him, but then she’d have to explain that she might possibly maybe believe him about the triclosate and was looking into it. And that gave him too much power.

Her phone chimed, an incoming text from Jianyu. It seemed he had something more to say after all.
 

Try foreman. Lu Bao.

Darcy frowned. Why would he tell her to talk to the foreman unless he thought there was more to this after all?

Another text chimed. This time with Lu Bao’s phone number.
 

Will glanced over again. Darcy smiled and shrugged. “Work. Never stops.”

Will shook his head at her and got up to stretch. She watched surreptitiously. Even his stretch was graceful. Catlike.

Darcy took her phone into the bedroom. The fewer distractions, the better.
 

It wasn’t an easy conversation. Lu Bao sounded drunk, and he sure had a lot to say about his former employers. It seemed factory conditions were less than ideal. Triclosate? That stuff had a nasty smell; it got into your nostrils and the back of your throat. Butylparaben was even worse.
 

Butylparaben? Darcy felt a lump in her chest. How many chemicals had been stuffed into her beloved skin softener?
 

Whether it was her uncertain grasp of Mandarin or his tipsy state, Darcy wasn’t able to pin Lu Bao down. The chemicals might have been in that lotion, but then again, maybe not. They were hard to work with, though, and he wished Golden Not Organic and Fujiyama Factories would have let him depart the job in peace ten years ago the way he asked.
 

When she got off the phone, Darcy pulled a blanket around her shoulders, shivering. The room was cold, or was it her thoughts? Could she have understood Lu Bao right? Could this go further than her one lotion?

~*~

Midnight. Bedtime.
 

Darcy yawned and closed her computer, setting it on the coffee table. Across the room, at the dining table, Will yawned too, rubbing his eyes. He stretched, got up. Looked across at her. Looked away.

A tingle started in her throat, snaked its way down to her groin. She ignored it, or tried to.
 

She had to be practical about the sleeping arrangements. Last night she hadn’t gotten any sleep until she’d crawled into his amazing, insomnia-banishing bed. What were the odds that she could convince Will to sleep on the couch and let her have the bed?
 

Or there was the other option.
 

Sharing the bed.
 

Why not? They had done it last night, and it went fine. Well, until this morning…

Darcy glanced over at Will, caught him looking at her again. That gaze scorched her, and her body ignited with an answering heat.
 

Hot, raw sex on that bed. Clutching, grasping, grabbing, thrusting—

And now she was flushed, hot from head to toe. So much for sleepiness.
 

She walked into the bedroom, grabbed her oversized top and fresh underpants, and headed into the bathroom. It was tempting to change in the bedroom, to claim it as her turf, but the thought—it felt too naked. Vulnerable. Open to him. Which she wasn’t. Which she couldn’t be. Not him. Not Will Freaking Untrustworthy, Unknowable Dougherty.
 

The familiar litany was starting to lose its punch. Still, she locked both bathroom doors. For privacy.
 

“He’ll shaft you when you’re not looking,”
Mathias had said, and he wasn’t talking about the embezzlement.
 

Will was the enemy here. She had to remember that.
 

A sexy enemy. A sometimes kind enemy. An enemy who was good with kids.

An enemy who was probably stripping down to his boxers right now behind that door, then sliding between cool sheets. Sheets she’d share.

She finished unbuttoning her shirt and dropped it, staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her eyes looked glazed; her nipples were tight. No surprise.
 

What would Will do if she walked back into the bedroom like this, half-naked and hot for him? What if she goaded him, yelled at him, slapped him across the cheek, and left a mark? Would he fuck her on that bed again?
 

She pulled the T-shirt over her head, then squirted toothpaste onto her toothbrush.
 

When she left the bathroom, Will was wearing a bathrobe. A few pale chest hairs peeked out, a hint of muscular thigh, but otherwise he was discreetly covered up. Too bad.
 

No, no, it was a good thing. A very good thing.
 

He brushed past her on his way into the bathroom. It felt like an electric shock. He jerked a little too, and it wasn’t static. It was sex. It hung in the air, a potent, impossible question.
 

As Will disappeared into the bathroom, Darcy slid under the covers. The sheets felt smooth against her bare legs. The mattress was an ongoing revelation, yielding in just the right way, cradling her back in a firm embrace. She sighed and settled in, but didn’t fully relax. Not yet. If Will tried to kick her out of bed, he’d have a battle on his hands.

The bathroom door squeaked open. Darcy could hear the soft pad of Will’s bare feet approaching the bed. She kept her eyes closed but felt her whole body tense with nerves and anticipation.
 

A long beat followed. She opened her left eye a slit, just to check. Will stood by the bed, staring at her. “I can see you, Darcy. Closing your eyes doesn’t make you invisible.”

She opened both eyes and sat up, covering her shirt-clad torso with the blanket and trying to blot out the memory the gesture evoked: holding this same blanket up to herself that first night, two nights ago now. And then letting go of it. “I’m sleeping here.” Silently, she cursed the slight quaver in her voice.
 

“If I kick you out, will you show up at three a.m. complaining of insomnia and demanding bed space?”

“Yes.”
 

“Guess I have no choice, then.” He took a blanket out of the closet, rolled it up, and stuck it down the middle of the bed, a makeshift barrier. “You agree to stay on your side?”

“Of course.”
 

He took off the bathrobe, showing an expanse of chest and that lovely flat abdomen, with a narrow line of hair leading down to— Unfortunately, his boxers covered the rest. His boxers which were, um, starting to tent…?
 

He turned out the light and slid under the covers.
 

The room was quiet. In the distance, the ocean crashed against the rocky shoreline. A breeze blew through the open window, gently fluttering the curtain. Will breathed evenly, quietly.
 

Her body felt like a viola string that had just been plucked. Vibrating, right to her core. She felt so wound up, so turned on, there was no way she could sleep. She was far too aware of Will on the bed. If she reached out, she could slide her hand down the sinuous cleft of his spine. She could see the afterimage of his fit, toned body on the backs of her eyelids: the cut of his cheekbones, his sun-streaked hair, the contradiction of his changeable eyes under dark slashes of eyebrows, that generous, lush mouth. The flex of thigh muscles as he’d bent his leg to get into bed, the slide of the bathrobe as it fell off his back, the way those light blue boxers started to pouch out as the shaft underneath thickened and elongated with awareness of her…

Seeking relief, she stealthily moved her hand along her body until her fingers slid between her legs. Her thumb surreptitiously caressed her aching clit, and it felt painfully good. She sucked in her lip to keep from moaning. Thankfully, the mattress wasn’t bouncy at all. She could do this. He’d never have to know. And then, after that sweet release, maybe she could actually sleep.
 

Beside her, beyond the makeshift barrier, Will shifted a little. She froze, motionless.
 

He settled. She breathed through her nose, slow and steady. After an endless pause, her fingers started rubbing again. Sliding across her heated center, dipping in, circling the parts that needed succor most. It was so easy to imagine his thick, hard cock instead of those fingers, imagine him inside her, his driving force, his—

She was so wet, so hot, and he was on the bed beside her. This was a bad idea, but it was also a good idea. It was prevention therapy, stopping her from doing what she desired most right now: grabbing him and insisting they have sex
right now
. Which would most certainly be a bad idea. Especially if he said no and hated her for asking.
 

So she flicked her fingers and sank into the safety of the dream. It was all about minute movements, pressure, her thumb, her imagination—

~*~

There it was again, that tiny catch of breath, almost a moan. Was Darcy doing what he thought she was doing? He listened for it. It was ever so subtle, but the ragged edges of her breath, the slight movements. Almost, no, definitely rhythmic.
 

Fuck all. She was.
 

He was lying here with a raging hard-on at the sight of her in that ridiculously thin nightshirt after such an emotionally draining day, with Darcy of the past clashing with Darcy in the present. Sexy, poised, clever Darcy, who might possibly even be a good person. In some respects. At least some part of her. The part he could have fallen in love with. Maybe that part was real after all.

When he’d come back into the room after brushing his teeth and washing his face, Darcy was already under the covers, her dark hair cascading across the pillow. He’d had to fight the urge to fall on the bed and bury his face in that soft hair, rubbing it against his cheek before rolling the woman under him to kiss and caress at will.