“It’s surprisingly difficult to do,” I said seriously.
“Not surprising at all,” she said. “Eye contact for that long is usually limited to babies and sociopaths.”
Seriously, adorable.
“Stop laughing at me,” she said.
I tried for serious. She frowned deeper. If smiling was my natural state, then frowning was hers. It was so damn sexy. That pout brought more focus to her already distracting mouth.
“Well, I’d say that’s generalizing. But yes, to your point, that’s why it makes it a good exercise. You’re trusting me to see you uninterrupted. And I’m trusting you to do the same.”
She put a hand to her chest. “Why is my heart racing? I almost wish we were doing trust falls,” she admitted.
My heart was pounding too. In fact, I was beginning to regret this plan. Eye contact was a trust builder for sure. But it was also terribly intimate.
“It’s just me,” I said. “If you start to feel uncomfortable, remember when I biffed it and you had to save me.”
“I don’t like to think about that.” Her brows knitted. “Let’s just get started.” I started to speak and she cut me off. “Calm down, calm down. I’m not rushing the moment. I just want to see if I can do it.”
“Okay, good.” I set the timer on my watch.
“Oh wow, you’re really timing it.”
“I don’t mess around.”
She took a deep inhale of breath and let it out slowly. “I suddenly can’t remember what to do with my arms.” She flopped them out.
“Ready?” I asked.
Turns out that when Roxy was uncomfortable, she was even more charming. This was a version of Roxy I doubted many people got to see. In that way it already felt like we were making progress. And damn if it didn’t make me feel special.
She shook her hair back off her face. “Ready.”
“Three …”
She looked up to the sky.
“Two …”
And then down to the rocks beneath us.
“One,” I whispered.
Her gaze locked on to mine. It was as though the breath was sucked out of my chest. A physical reaction to her undivided attention punched me harder in the solar plexus than I thought possible. But I was the professional in this situation, so I had to make it look easy.
It couldn’t have been three seconds and already the twitching began. Her fingers tapped on her knees. She breathed in and out. This was killing her.
“I keep feeling like I can’t blink,” she tried to joke.
“No talking,” I whispered.
Interestingly, the more she fidgeted, the easier it was for me to pull strength and pretend that sustained eye contact wasn’t almost as arousing as our handholding.
A few seconds later, she noticed how well I was doing and her competitive side kicked in. With her gaze still locked on mine, she blew her fringe off her face dramatically. She raised one eyebrow. She lowered it. Then she lifted the other.
I remained stoic.
Her gaze narrowed. She began to undulate her eyebrows. Lifting and dropping one eyebrow and then the other, like fans joining the wave at a football match.
