Page 59 of Sterling Fight

“I know.” I blow out a breath and cover my eyes again as if the position will actually hide me.

“Judd,” Clay’s voice softens. He knows that tone gets me every time. “Do you want to marry Genie?”

Yes. It’s hardly been four days, but I want all the specialty dates and official holidays and all the days in between. I’ve known since I was ten how I felt about her, and at fourteen I knew I wanted only her, and when I was eighteen that I needed to make her mine.

She’s wearing the ring I always intended to give her.

“It’s too fast, right?” I argue even though I’ve answered in my head. “It’s wrong to want her so much.”

Clay’s brows lift and he blinks once. “Wrong? I don’t think it’s ever wrong to love someone.”

Are we discussing love? Marriage and love should go hand in hand. They do. I’m clearly ahead of myself.

“I just can’t concentrate at home,” I circle back to how this conversation started.

Clay chuckles again. “Good to see you opening up.”

“About my feelings?”

“Well, that too. But I just meant to me.” The gaze in my brother’s eyes is full of adoration and pride. He’s happy for me, even if I’m befuddled. “Now, get to work.”

He’s kidding. I work almost as hard as he does.

Clay stands and moves the mystery chair back to the corner of the office. “But don’t work here too long. Your fiancée awaits you at home.”

“I told you she’s not⁠—”

“Not yet,” Clay interjects, holding up a hand. “But if you want her to be, that’s a different kind of work. One more important than this place.” He waves around, meaning the Seed & Soil.

I could argue, how can he say that, but I know his reasons for changing his outlook.

I want those same kinds of reasons to change mine.

To avoid the couch and the chaise lounge, I suggest Genie and I play a game. We can sit perpendicular to one another at the dining room table. No close proximity. No tickling feet. No touching thighs and no torturous reading passages.

Only with just a chess board between us, my concentration is shot as Genie’s foot continues to meet mine beneath the table. Once by accident. But when it happened a second time, I wondered if the move was intentional.

Suddenly, it’s a battle of toes more than pawns on the chess board. Her delicate ones brushing over the top of my foot. My stronger ones capturing hers and pinning them to the floor. Every swipe is like a current up my leg and straight to my dick, straining beneath the table like a schoolboy trying to contain his erection behind a desk.

Genie has me so wound up I can’t think straight.

Eventually, Genie sets a piece in line to take my queen and calls out, “Checkmate, baby.”

My head shoots upward at the softness in her tone. She didn’t say the endearment in any other way than to claim her victory and yet it sounds like a win to my ears.

The coo of her voice. The glee in it. And the spark in her eyes as she looks at me. As seconds tick by, I’m holding my breath again, desperate for Genie to make a move. To give me a sign that she wants more from me.

For three nights in a row, we’ve danced around one another. Fumbled touches. Purposeful caresses. Fingers and toes. Thighs and hands.

Tonight, Genie is the one to pull back, though not as abruptly as I did last night. With her eyes still on mine, she says, “I think I’ll read again.”

If only it were an invitation to join her, or better yet, act out that scene she read to me last night.

Instead, I say, “Good night, firefly,” hoping to hide the disappointment in my throat.

“Good night,” she says, standing up while keeping her eyes on me like she has something more she wants to say.

When she doesn’t speak, I drag out the moment. “Sweet dreams, firefly.”