AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Um . . . excuse you? I’m pretty sure I’m not a poodle,”
she replied with her arms crossed over her chest.
“Don’t be di cult. I used to know an acupuncturist. If your neck hurts from sleeping on it wrong, there’s a pressure point to fix that,” she explained in a feigned hu .
“Knew? As in the biblical sense?” Arwyn asked with an obnoxious little smirk Sloane had to resist kissing.
“Maybe. Why? Jealous?” she teased before asking her to move again.
Arwyn refused to move, but Sloane also refused to give up. “Fine. If you want to be a child, I can help you from here.”
Standing in front of Arwyn the same way she had when she’d pushed between her thighs, Sloane put both her hands at the back of her neck. Arwyn’s eyes, only inches from Sloane’s face, widened.
“Close your eyes,” Sloane demanded abruptly. She wouldn’t be able to slow the pounding in her chest with
deep, dark eyes peering into her. The scent of her skin and the softness of her lips were hard enough to ignore.
“Is it supposed to hurt?” Arwyn asked softly as her eyes slipped closed.
As Sloane hunted for the pressure point with her fingertips, she didn’t believe her complaint for a second. “Be quiet or it won’t work,” she lied, half wanting to stop the ache building low in her belly and half wanting to revel in the intoxicating pain.
When Sloane found what she was looking for, she pressed down on the spot with both index fingers.
“Oh, God,” Arwyn moaned, throwing kindling on the simmering heat building in Sloane’s tortured body.
“Nice, right?” Sloane managed after a beat, projecting all the calm coolness she’d ever possessed, hoping it was enough to conceal the nerves making her hands tremble.
“Nice?” She groaned again, her mouth hanging open and sending a jolt of searing white heat through her. What she wouldn’t give to see that expression as Arwyn writhed beneath her. “It’s like you found a switch. I’m just not sure whether it’s on or o .”
“I’m thinking one is better than the other,” she joked, desperate to break the tension pulling her chest apart.
Arwyn opened her eyes. They were suddenly too close. Her breath quickened as it fell against Sloane’s chin making it hard to break away. The muscles in her thighs twitched, but she couldn’t tell whether she wanted to spring forward or jump back.
“Sloane,” Arwyn whispered, searching her face.
She was trying to convey something with her wide, brown eyes. They were always betraying her feelings, but now, when Sloane needed to read them most, they were indecipherable. Or her sudden fear of reading them wrong was causing interference.
“What?” Sloane asked feebly, losing herself in the scent and sight and feel of her. Her hair, loose from its bun, was soft and silky between Sloane’s fingers.
The space between them was mere inches but was so insurmountable it may as well have been a gulf. Sloane stared at her lips, full and beautifully formed. She ached to taste them again, but Arwyn had been clear about not wanting to complicate their seemingly fragile alliance.
A buzzing against the desk snapped Sloane out of it. While Arwyn lunged toward the phone, she took a step back as she regained her senses.
“The jury’s back,” she said nearly breathless. “They reached a verdict.”
CHAPTER 30
WHEN ARI RETURNED to the nearly empty courtroom, she was on wobbly legs. It reminded her of the single time she’d tried surfing while on vacation with her parents in Daytona. She’d felt like a newborn gira e then and she was just as unsteady now.
Slipping into the chair next to Sloane, Ari tried and failed not to look at her. Part of her wanted to drop the front and bare her soul to ask if she was still feeling something between them, but fear and doubt kept her lips glued together. What would Sloane think if she asked what the preceding moment in the o ce meant?
Ari’s memories shot back to the eighth grade. After months of inner turmoil and self-doubt, she’d come out to her best friend. Immediately she’d wondered if Ari had a crush on her. If she’d ever looked at her when they changed together or shared a bed during a sleep over.
Her stomach churned. Is she going to think she can’t engage in normal human contact without me swooning all over her? As they waited, Ari’s mind reeled, dissecting every second of the last few hours. But it wasn’t normal, was it?
The tell-tale buzz that alerted the court that the judge was about to enter derailed Ari’s wildly spinning thoughts.
“All rise,” the exhausted looking court o cer said as the judge entered.
