Make You Mine. Niobia Bryant
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Make You Mine - Niobia Bryant страница 13
Название: Make You Mine
Автор: Niobia Bryant
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Короткие любовные романы
isbn: 9780758244161
isbn:
He looked up and their eyes locked.
She immediately noticed that he looked annoyed.
“Welcome back,” he said, his tone short.
She stiffened. Her eyes shifted quickly about the room. She was looking to see if he was alone.
“She’s gone,” he said with finality.
Caress’s lips formed an O and she looked apologetic as she stepped in and softly closed the kitchen door. “Listen, Julius, I’m sorry about all of this. Please don’t think I’m out to trap you or screw up your life—”
“Caress.”
She shifted her eyes up to his and then shifted them away just as quickly. “This shit is…all of it is…is…embarrassing, frightening, foolishness…”
Julius nodded as he turned sideways and leaned his hip against the sink to cross his strong arms over his chest. “I won’t have women over while you’re living here, Caress,” he told her as he cast those intense eyes on her.
“That’s not necessary—”
“Yes, it is,” he insisted in a strong voice.
She hated to ask. She really did…but she had to. “Karina?”
“Left right after you did.”
He continued to watch her closely, and it made Caress feel nervous. “I appreciate you helping me out, Julius,” she said, not sure what else to say. “I know you don’t know me, but it’s been awhile since I’ve asked somebody for help or even had anybody that I could ask.”
His eyes squinted as he continued to watch her.
She ran her hands over her hair as she felt tears build. Damn hormones , she thought, hating the feelings she had officially designated as “the weepies.”
Julius pushed off the sink and Caress couldn’t help but notice everything about him.
The way the soft hairs on his chest peeked above the open buttons of his linen shirt. The strength in his walk. The soft and subtle scent of his cologne. The fullness of his bottom lips. The intensity of his eyes. The man was impossibly sexy.
She saw his hands reach out to take her. Comfort her. Hold her.
It was way more than she could handle in that moment. Way more.
“I’m gonna turn in,” she said softly, shifting past his embrace to walk fast as hell out of the kitchen. She never looked back as she raced up the stairs and into the bedroom. As soon as the door closed, she pressed her back to it and slid her hands down to lightly rub her belly as she waited for the longest time for her heartbeat to slow down.
Something as simple as a hug from Julius would have turned her knees to jelly and her senses would have flown out the window again and she would have easily snuggled her lips against his. Something about that man was dangerous to her common sense and until she found her own spot she had to find a way to avoid that same electric pull from that night they shared.
Caress’s hands flew to her mouth as she felt the greasy hotdog she’d had at the movies work its way up. She dashed to the adjoining bathroom just in time to reach the toilet.
As she felt that steady thump-thump of her core ease she was actually glad for the morning sickness.
Julius leaned his head closer to the bedroom door as he listened to the awful sounds of Caress retching. He came upstairs to retrieve fresh linens from the hall closet and overheard her. He fought the urge to barge in and go to her. It was obvious she wanted distance from him.
Still, it wasn’t until he heard the toilet flush and her moving about with normalcy inside the bedroom that he finally moved away from the door to retrieve his linens and make his way back downstairs to sleep on the couch.
Chapter Five
Caress was tired with a capital T.
She used her key to enter the house and dropped her purse and winter coat on the foyer table before she made her way to the guest bathroom to relieve herself. She had two inter views today—and that made four this week—and Caress was praying like crazy that one of them panned out. Looking in the papers for apartments was all well and good but without money it was all just a dream.
She was just finishing up when she heard her cell phone ringing from her purse in the hall. Hurrying to wash her hands, Caress made it back out to the hall in record time. “Hey, Tam. What’s up?” she greeted her friend after seeing her number on the caller ID.
“Just checking on you. How’d it go?”
Caress kept the phone pressed to her ear as she jogged up the stairs to her room. “Girl, to hell with complaining pimps. It’s hard out here for everybody.”
Tamara laughed. “Tell me about it.”
Caress bent over to dig a pair of sweats out of her hamper of clean clothes that she still had to fold. She saw a yellow tank and she grabbed that too. “I just can’t believe I’m in this mess.”
“Shit happens.”
“Yes, I know and usually to me,” Caress drawled as she put the phone on speaker and then set it on the nightstand next to an unfinished bottle of Snapple.
“How’s everything at the house?”
Caress quickly removed the black sweater dress and high-heeled boots she wore. “If our baby is half the neat freak his father is then my womb is spotless.”
“Julius can be very… particular .”
Caress started to say anal was the better word, but who was she to complain? The man was doing her a huge favor and she hadn’t forgotten that once in these last two weeks since his return from Africa. “Well, I hardly see him. We just do our own thing you know. We pass each other like ships in the night.”
Tamara got silent.
Caress gladly slipped on the sweats and tee. She instantly felt better. “Tamara? You there?”
“Umm-hmmm.”
Caress froze in pulling her hair up into a ponytail. “What?” she asked, waiting for whatever it was Tamara wanted to say.
“Nothing,” her friend said simply. Too simply.
Caress arched a brow. “Oh, it’s something.”
“Well…I just wondered how you guys feel, you know, being around each other and…stuff and you know memories and…stuff comes drifting back and…”
“Yeah, I know. Stuff?” Caress bent down to the floor to find her left slipper somewhere under the pile of shoes under the bed. “We’re not screwing, Tamara, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Hmmm. Pity.”
Unable СКАЧАТЬ