“And Dwayne Johnson’s only in thirty of them,” Miles says, from the opposite end of the couch.
“I wish I could send them an Edible Arrangement to thank them for their service.” I sit up to grab another sour gummy worm from the Spread of Bad Decisions Miles arranged for us.
“There’s just something about a movie where shit gets blown up during a car chase,” he says, “that makes me feel like everything’s going to be okay.”
At my laugh, he looks over, stretches one leg out until his foot is pushing against my thigh. “Hey, that was a real one.”
I turn to face him, my back against the arm of the couch, and swing my legs up onto the cushions. “A real what?”
“A real laugh,” he says. “You’ve got your polite little chuckle, and then you’ve got that weird, deep chortle you do when you actually think I’m funny.”
“It’s not a polite laugh,” I say. “It’s a display of mild amusement. I’d never fake-laugh. I don’t fake anything.”
He gives me a look.
I go warm in several places.
“So if that’s the mild amusement laugh,” he says, “then the low chortle is reserved for . . .”
“When you’re actually funny,” I say.
Without warning, he grabs my ankles and yanks me down the couch, draping my legs across his lap, my butt resting against the side of his thigh so that his face hangs over me.
“Fine!” I say, heart trilling at this closeness. “You’re actually funny a lot of the time.”
The corner of his mouth ticks. “And the chortle is . . . ?”
“I think it’s when I’m really relaxed,” I say. “I’ve always been self-conscious about my laugh, but this immense amount of attention being drawn to it is definitely helping.”
At the sarcasm, his grin spreads. He takes hold of my wrists. “No, don’t be self-conscious,” he says. “It’s so fucking cute.”
“I can really tell from the way you described it,” I deadpan.
“I’m serious.” He lifts my wrists, planting my limp hands on the sides of his face, a grown and bearded version of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone. “I never would’ve said anything about it if I didn’t think it was cute.”
This is the most we’ve touched in weeks. Every point of contact vibrates.
He gingerly sets my hands back down on my chest, crossing them like I’m lying in a coffin, and while his knuckles barely graze me, my nipples peak up against my shirt.
I see him notice.
The anesthetizing power of the action-comedy genre isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m a bundle of buzzing nerves and want.
His gaze lifts abruptly. “Shit, sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.” He starts to straighten up, but I catch his wrists now, keep him from moving too far. “It’s fine,” I say. “Really. It doesn’t need to be weird.”
“I think it’s just because we kissed,” he says.
“I think so too,” I tell him.
Still neither of us moves.
“I’ve been trying not to think about it too much,” he says.
Realizing he’s been thinking about it at all is enough to raise my body temperature a few degrees.
“Same,” I get out.
It’s been almost three weeks, and instead of the kiss fading in the rearview, it feels like every day since, I’ve been sliding closer and closer to an invisible ledge, more and more desperate to know what lies beyond it.
He meets my eyes, jaw muscles working as he swallows. Heat unfurls over me, starting where my palms are ringed around his wrists, climbing up my center.
I need to let go of him.
Instead my hands scrape up his arms. They feel amazing. Not gym arms, just arms that get a fair amount of daily use. For such a scruffy man, his skin is smooth, the hairs on his forearms fine and soft. My fingers instinctively follow the ridges of his veins up to his biceps, the anchor tattoo on one and the old-school bird on the other. I follow the curve of his shoulders, carried by an unstoppable current.
When I reach the back of his neck, he folds over me, slowly, one of his hands coming to press lightly on my waist. There’s a moment of hesitation as our mouths hover close.
I should say something, break this tension that’s been building.
Instead my chin tips up to him.
The first brush of his lips is faint, not the fevered, vengeful kiss we had against his truck. Not at first. But then my hands glide down his back, and he’s shifting to lower himself over me, and I think my nervous system might overload from the sensations: his hips heavy against mine, his chest pressing me flat, the low, hungry sound that emanates from him as the kiss deepens, more honest with our want.
He drags one of my knees up against his hip, and I see stars, little blips of color popping against my eyelids. My hips tip up to his, and my shyness disintegrates as his mouth skates down my jaw, his teeth scraping my neck.
There’s no space to worry about what he’s thinking or how I’m coming across. Because now I’m sure that he wants me, like I want him. Nothing else matters.
My hands move down to his ass and he licks the skin beneath my ear. I gasp, and he tilts his hips against mine, making me arch. This no longer feels like just making out. It’s the prelude to something bigger.
