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We all start laughing, Belle and Cindy collapsing on top of me in a pile of stupid girly giggles.
“Oooooh, is this the naked tickling portion of the evening?”
Our laughter immediately stops and we all jerk upright at the sound of Eric’s voice.
He’s standing at the base of the stairs with an amused expression as he looks down at the three of us in the middle of the floor.
He had changed his clothes from earlier today. If I thought he looked good in a simple T-shirt and jeans, I’d obviously forgotten what he looks like in black tailored dress pants and a blue dress shirt the same color as his eyes. The top button of the shirt is undone and his sleeves are unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows. I can see the muscles in his forearms flex as he pulls his hands out of his front pockets.
“Sorry, no naked tickling,” Belle informs him with a laugh.
“Naked pillow fight?” he asks hopefully.
“Nope,” Cindy replies with a smile.
“Naked Twister? Naked wrestling? Seriously, give me something.”
“Nope, nope, and nope,” Belle says, pushing herself up from the floor and holding her hand out to help Cindy up.
“My whole porn viewing life has been a lie,” he mutters, shaking his head in fake sadness.
As this entire exchange happens, I just sit here, staring at Eric and thinking about what Cindy said about him being sweet and wanting to take care of me, and how even though I want to stick him in the same box as Sebastian, I can’t. He’s nothing like Sebastian, no matter how hard try want to convince myself he is just because it’s easier than the idea of being vulnerable and hurt again.
“We should probably call an Uber,” Cindy says, moving on unsteady, drunk feet over to the couch to grab her purse and pull her phone out.
“No need. I already called Vincent and PJ when I heard all the giggling from over on my yacht after you opened all the windows on this booze cruise. I know drunk giggles when I hear them. They should be pulling in any minute now,” Eric tells her.
Uuuggghh, why can’t he just be an asshole?
My friends gather their things and tell me they’ll call me tomorrow. As they walk across the room, each stops to raise up on her toes, kiss Eric on the cheek, and tell him thank you. Then they disappear up the stairs.
I start getting jealous that those bitches know what it feels like to have their lips pressed against his skin, and then get annoyed with myself and blame it on the alcohol. I try to get up from the floor, but quickly flop back down when my hands don’t want to work. Before I can press my hands into the carpet and try again, Eric is across the room standing over me.
“Need some help?” he asks with a smirk that I absolutely do not find adorable.
“Nope. I’ve got it,” I tell him, trying to get my legs under me and failing as the room spins and I flop back down on my ass.
I hear him chuckle, and while I’m busy glaring at the goose bumps that pop out on my arms, he bends down and scoops me up in his arms.
“What are you doing?!” I screech. “Put me down. I’m too heav—”
“I swear to Christ if you say you’re too heavy, I will walk you out on the deck and toss you overboard,” he mutters angrily, tightening his arms around my back and under my legs as he hugs me tighter to his chest, carrying me like I weigh no more than a feather. “You’re perfect. Everything about you is fucking perfect.”
As he starts walking us through the living room, I think about how he said he could hear us giggling. And I start to panic, wondering how much else he heard over on his boat, since we opened all of the windows in the living room to let some fresh air in.
Oh, my God, what if he heard all the pathetic things I said? What if he knows how much of a fool I was? How insecure I am?
Since I have now entered the drunk-crying portion of the evening, I wrap my arms around his neck and rest my cheek against his shoulder to try and blink the tears away so I don’t have to be any more mortified than I already am.
“I don’t like you,” I mutter against his chest, even as I breathe in deeply just to fill my nose with the smell of his cologne.
His chest rumbles with laughter against my cheek as he carries me down the dark hallway towards where I’m assuming the master bedroom is; I never made it past the living room to explore, even after Belle and Cindy arrived.
“You’ve made that startlingly clear,” he replies.
