Somehow, despite the fact that I had just left home for the first time, that I just hurt every member of my family, and that I had no clue what the hell I was doing, I could only think of Dex. Sleeping in the next room. Alone.
My insides swirled as I replayed the kiss in my mind. Moving out wasn’t a mistake. But moving in with Dex might have been. I didn’t know how long I could go with someone like him around me all the time. Scratch that, not someone like him. Him, period. No matter what happened, he was Dex and I was Perry and that combination only led to trouble.
With a sleepy head, I started plotting out my next plan: get a job, fast, and move out, even faster.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Shut your piehole, Fatty Rab!” Dex bellowed from the bathroom where I could hear his electric razor running.
There had just been a knock at the door, which got the mutt all excited and yappy, even though it was just Rebecca coming by to take me out for lunch.
“I’ll get it,” I told Dex, and wiped my hands on my jeans. I was a tiny bit nervous about seeing Rebecca again. The last time I had seen her, I wasn’t very cordial. She had come to Portland to try and convince me to give Dex another chance and I pretty much told her to f**k off. I cringed a bit, remembering my behavior. Perhaps I was already not in the right frame of mind at the time.
I took a quick breath and opened the door. Rebecca looked immaculate as always, dressed in a red shift dress under a grey tweed, funnel-necked coat, with spiderweb tights and platform booties. Her hair was still a shiny, raven bob and her face was bare except for red lipstick. Next to me in my ponytail, mutt-slobbered jeans and black-and-white striped sweater, she looked positively Hollywood.
She gently pushed away Fat Rabbit who was attempting to claw up her tights, and with a wide smile, embraced me in a hug. Whatever nerves I felt quickly dissolved.
She pulled away and held me in place, eyes warm and shining.
“I’m so sorry to be last minute. I know you only got here last night and I was texting you like a twit, forgetting that I don’t have your new number.”
“Yeah, thanks for phoning me at 7:00 AM,” Dex yelled from the bathroom. “It wasn’t like I planned on sleeping or anything.”
She rolled her eyes and then gave one quick last hug.
“So, how are you settling in here?” she asked.
I looked at the stack of boxes right beside us that still hadn’t made their way into the den.
“Well, I’m not quite there yet.”
She smiled sympathetically, taking note of my eyes that I knew were still puffy from yesterday. “You’ll get there. This must be all so overwhelming for you.”
I raised my brows wryly and lowered my voice. “You don’t even know.”
She patted my arm gently and yelled past me. “Hey, Dex, I’m going to be taking her out now. Will you be here later?”
“I’m taking the car to the shop,” he said and I felt a pang of guilt in my chest from the memory of trying to take his car off the road, the horror of the crash. I know it wasn’t me doing the actions, but still.
“But you can just give Perry your spare keys,” he continued and he stepped out of the bathroom. “They belong to her now anyway.”
I tried to not let my jaw hit the ground as he walked toward us. He had shaven, so he was less beardy and more stubbly, which showed off the strong lines of his jaw, the twinkle in his brown eyes. But that wasn’t what had me in lustful awe.
With only a white towel wrapped around his waist, Dex was looking…unbelievable. While he always had a nice and rather firm body, now he was definitely packing some serious muscle. His chest was hard and sculpted and I wouldn’t have recognized it had the words And with madness comes the light not been tattooed across it. Now, it was a lethal combination.
Below his chest, there was a genuine six-pack, precise squares etched on his tight stomach and his hips had those lines of perpendicular muscles leading in a V down into his towel. For a second, I was caught up in a whirl of desire and I mentally kicked myself for instigating a no kissing, no sex house rule.
“Oh, Dex,” Rebecca chided from beside me, bringing me back to reality. “Put your shirt back on. Are you trying to turn me straight or something?”
He grinned cheekily, dimples cutting in, and I then noticed he had his eyebrow ring back on. That, his smile, and his tattoo were the only things that reminded me that this was still Dex and he couldn’t be trusted. Especially now, especially with that body.
I was starting to be distracted by the round girth of his shoulders and upper arms, when I felt Rebecca tug at my arm.
“Come on, let’s let this show pony get back to his grooming,” she said. I let her lead me away to the door, walking backward.
Dex smiled at me, a smile I was unable to return, and he turned around to head back into the bathroom. I caught a glimpse of his smooth, wide back and something else. A new tattoo, words written across the back of his left shoulder. Before I had a chance to read it properly, he was gone.
“He got a new tattoo,” I commented to no one in particular as Rebecca pushed the dog away and opened the door.
She nodded. “Come on, we want to hit Icon before it gets too busy.”
I snatched up my purse and jacket and we left the apartment, Dex’s tattoo on my mind. I couldn’t even imagine what it could have said.
It turned out that the Icon restaurant was just down the street from the apartment, which was super handy, considering it was my new home, something I needed to keep reminding myself of. It was a weird feeling. The walk also gave me time to pepper Rebecca with questions. Surely, she knew this was coming.
“Thank you for taking me out for lunch,” I told her.
“No worries.”
“When did Dex get that tattoo?”
She smiled quickly to herself before answering. “A couple of weeks ago. I went with him.”
“What does it say?”
This time her smile was for me. “You’ll have to ask him that, Perry. It’s fairly personal to him.”
Personal? This was going to drive me nuts. What on earth could be personal to Dex?
The restaurant was a popular place for lunch thanks to an extensive unique menu and a detailed décor of pink walls, candy-shaped glass objects, marble-cracked tables and a million lamps. I was so tempted to launch into a discussion about Dex but I did that the last time Rebecca took me out for lunch. So I feigned ignorance and asked her how she and Emily were doing.