Page 80 of Obsessed with the Heartbreaker

I was well aware that a quiet night in was many people’s dream plan. Crazy as it was, Ididget it, even if everyone knew the Heartbreaker thrived when he was surrounded by people that would fawn over him and beg to kiss his feet like the King everyone thought him to be.

Appearances aside, though, I used to love quiet nights in. Not by myself, but with the guy currently settling himself next to me, still shirtless, still with the afterglow of sex making his eyes glitter with satisfaction, still with the power to wreck me with just a glance.

Once settled, we sat side by side on my bed. I used books and pillows between us to hold up the laptop currently playing an old sitcom show we both used to like when our situation was different and there were less burdens making our shoulders heavy. There were several inches separating us, especially as we both ate our pizzas, but as time went by, they started to disappear.

I tried and failed to ignore the goose bumps that appeared on my skin when I became aware of our nearness. Ignoring the way Antony’s warmth and scent beside me made me feel was also the advisable thing to do, but the feeling was insistent. The haunting words were whispering in my ear like a devil on my shoulder, telling me to just get a little closer. It would be fine. Nothing weird about it.

Then next thing I knew, my arm was over Antony’s shoulders, the laptop pushed further down the bed so it wouldn’t bother us, and his thumb was caressing abstract patterns on my thigh under the bed sheets.

“Do you do this often?” Antony asked all of a sudden, quietly breaking our silence.

“Do what?”

“Cuddle your sexual conquests.”

I tensed momentarily then forced myself to relax. “Never in my life have I called anyone asexual conquest, but no. I don’t make it a habit.”

Antony hummed in contemplation. “You’re good at it.”

His quiet confession stroked something inside me that I didn’t know needed stroking, and I instinctively tugged Antony closer to me, his head now basically resting against my chest.

“Is it a special occasion, then?”

It was, but I wasn’t going to tell him. It would reveal something that I would rather keep in the dark. Something that the haunting whispers were telling me tojust accept.

“Do you want me to stop, is that it? Because I can—”

My tone had been dismissive and threatening at once, a deflection, and one that worked all too well, since as I started to take my arm off his shoulder, Antony immediately reached out to hold on to my hand and put my arm back where it had been.

“No.It’s fine.”

He sounded so petulant, like he was only reluctantly admitting it, that I almost wanted to laugh at just how ridiculous we both were.

I didn’t move my arm away an inch.

The show kept on going, the characters cracking jokes and getting into sticky situations that in the past made us chuckle without fail. Now, however, both of us were suspiciously quiet, simply basking in the pleasure of being so close to each other—or at least that was what I was doing, much to my demise. And then, to make thingsevenworse, Antony started sniffing me.

His head, which was comfortably settled on the upper part of my chest, was turned to me, his nose tickling my neck, his lips close enough to kiss, bite or lick the expanse of naked skin. It was open for the taking. Always for him.

“Do I smell of come?” I asked, clearing my throat but not daring to shift too much lest he push away from me.

“No. You smell of your fruity shampoo,” he said softly, shamelessly, taking another deep inhale from my long hair. “And also…” his nose shifted again to my neck. The brush of his lips made me shiver and his hand tighten on my leg. “You smell of man.”

“Sweaty and dirty, then?” I asked with a sardonic tone.

Antony did push back right then, but there was a mischievous grin on his handsome face. “I’m not showering you with any more compliments, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m not making you any more big-headed than you already are.”

I scoffed, even if now I was justachingfor him to compliment me. To say something about me with earnest honesty in his eyes, to say something reckless, something likehe liked me, which would make me inevitably furiously kiss him and press him once more against the bed.

But he didn’t and I didn’t.

More silent moments passed before I couldn’t resist it anymore and asked. “And doyoudo this often?”

A slow blink. “Cuddle, you mean?”

I nodded.

The self-deprecating grin on his face immediately bothered me. “I’ve never been in a relationship, Henry, and I’d hardly do this with just…anyone.”

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