Page 41 of Quake

“How about a rom-com, then?” I ask, doing my best to hide the hope in my words.

“Hmm,” she hums, assessing me. “I gave you all those options, and youstillchose a romance, didn’t you? Like mother like son.” She laughs, and my cheeks flush as she grabs the remote off the wooden coffee table.

Heat climbs up my neck. This fucking woman.

The way she’s able to read me already has me unnerved.

“I don’t mind them,” I tell her, doing my best to sound indifferent.

She rolls her eyes as she scrolls through movies before landing onMade of Honor. “This’ll do,” she says as she lounges back against the cushions, propping her feet up on the coffee table and pressing play.

Having her feet on the table drives me a little insane. I’m starting to think that I might have some form of undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder. But it’s another thing I’m not willing to talk about just yet, so I reach over, grab her perfectly manicured little feet, and lay them over my lap. Her toenails are painted teal, and she has a gold toe ring wrapped around her second toe on the left foot.

“Was something bothering you, Gianni?” she asks me, her voice light and airy as she holds in a laugh.

“Not at all.” I do my best to keep my voice smooth and controlled. “Just giving you a more comfortable place for them.”

“Ah, I see.” She sucks her lips into her mouth, shoulders quaking with uncontained laughter as I become nauseous with worry at what she could possibly be about to say. She makes me feel bare.

And I can’t stand it.

I feel unhinged around her. Like every thought and secret I hold locked inside of the Pandora’s box within the carefully crafted shell of a person that I’ve become has been broken open for her, and her alone. She reads me like an open book. Every page written just for her eyes.

The next words out of her mouth break me out of my spiraling thoughts.

“You,” she points at my chest, “Gianni ‘whatever your middle name is’ De Laurentiis, have a foot fetish,” she tells me with a mischievous smile.

It’s so bright and beautiful that it takes me far longer than it should to process the words she’s just spoken.

A… a foot fetish? A fucking foot fetish?Goddamn this woman.

Everything about her leaves me reeling, so instead of answering her, I do something neither of us expects.

1. Cupid's Chokehold – Gym Class Heroes

Chapter twenty-three

Lark

Jesus Christ Almighty. MaybeI’mthe one with the foot fetish?

This delicious fucking man surprises me at every turn, and right now? He’s popping my big toe out of his mouth after licking it like a lollipop.

His hot mouth, combined with the swirl of his tongue and that gigantic, calloused hand of his scraping up my calf, has my body feeling like jelly. I have to bite my bottom lip to keep the traitorous whimper begging to release itself from breaking free. And as if nothing ever happened, he rests my leg back down in his lap, turning his attention back on the screen.

“Patrick Dempsey’s a stud. Good pick,” he says, and my racing mind can’t keep up.

Patrick Dempsey? I follow the path of his eyes and remember themoviethat we’resupposedto be watching, but instead? I’m just begging my body to cool down and stop responding to every word out of this man’s mouth.

I grab a strawberry lollipop from the glass container on the small table beside me, unwrapping it. “Oh, yeah, he is,” I finally get out, sucking the lollipop in my mouth. I set my eyes back on the screen, practically gluing them there as it seems to be the only safe place for them.

Ten minutes go by, and my body is finally starting to relax, but he breaks the silence, never looking away from the screen as he says, “It’s Elisio, by the way.”

I frown, unsure of what he’s talking about. Was something said in the movie? “I’m sorry, what?” I stutter.

He peers over at me, studying my face in that controlled way of his. “My middle name—it’s Elisio.”

“Gianni Elisio De Laurentiis.” I hum in approval. “I like it.”

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