I bless you with looks!
I bless you with money!
Though puberty will strike but once, you shall have the blessings of seven men—the kind that can’t be hidden in running shorts!
I hope someone sent the wicked fairy a thank-you note.
“You’ve gone very quiet.”
“I was just thinking,” I answer. Some might say overthinking. “I guess I’m trying to work out what’s troubling you.”
“I’m not troubled,” he says, looking exactly that.
“Fine. Talk in riddles. See if I care. I mean, it’s not like talking a problem through helps anyway. A problem shared is not a problem halved, or someone would’ve coined a phrase or something.” I go for a double shot of marshmallows to stop my mouth when Oliver takes my hand.
“Eve.” The way he says my name is like the brush of velvet. “Every night this week, after we’ve gotten back from wherever we been, I’ve gone for a run.”
“I didn’t see you leave.”
“I wait until you’ve gone to bed.”
“Why?”
“Why wait or why run?” He doesn’t wait for my answer, tugging me closer. And God help me, I don’t resist as I step over his outstretched leg. “Because I can’t sleep.” Taking the bag, he drops it to the counter. “Which leaves me lying in a bed not so far from yours, trying very hard not to wonder if you’re touching yourself while thinking of me too.”
“Oh.”It’s as though I’m not expecting our bodies to clash, as though I’m surprised by every, hard, glorious inch of him.
“I can’t sleep for wanting you, night after night. And tonight, I couldn’t stop thinking how, in the restaurant, it didn’t feel like pretend.”
“That was our agreement,” I whisper without a hint of consequence. Consequences would make me a hypocrite. Haven’t I been trying not to think the same?
“I want you—that much is real. I’m going crazy wondering if I’d ever get to touch you again.” Everything inside me clenches at his admission, and as he tilts his head, the air between us seems suddenly heavy, like a storm is about to roll in. “I can barely think when you’re near.” His hands glide across my shoulders and move down my back as he makes a plea of my name. Like I’m driving him a little insane. Honestly, I like that for me.
“If you kissed me, maybe I wouldn’t stop you,” I whisper, swallowing his breath and his words.
“If I kissed you, you know where it would lead. Darling, feel how hard you’ve made me.” Heat blooms inside as he presses me between thevof his legs. “It’s little wonder I can’t think straight,” he says as his lips suck over the beat of my pulse. “All my blood having drained to other parts.”
“You can take care of that anytime.”
His low laughter against my neck is a physical thrill. “Aren’t you listening? I’ve wanked myself half to death since you moved in.”
My brain short-circuits; the realization, that base word—those images—they’re too hot to process.
“Does that shock you?”
I shake my head.
“And if I asked you to watch?”
Ho-lyheck. “I’m not sure how that would help.”
“It wouldn’t hurt either.”
Innuendo. It makes me chuckle, at least until his hands slip under my T-shirt and up my naked back. His approval is a low hum as he realizes I’m braless.
“I’m not having sex with you.” God, Iachefor him. But torment and annoy. Maintain the upper hand—those were my plans. If I give in, everything changes. If I give in, it means not only that I can’t trust him but also that I can’t trust myself.
I shouldn’t muddy the waters any more than they are—it’s been hard enough to fight the brand of sweetness he’s shown me this week. The peanut butter and the fancy-Italian-chocolate spread that appeared on my breakfast tray. In my book, there isn’t a Monday that can’t be faced because of the existence of Nutella, and I’m not sure where he learned that about me.
