Page 26 of Waiting Game

I let my hands trickle over her arms again. “You’re welcome. Getting to sleep with a beautiful woman is no hardship.”

She stills. “Sleep with or fuck?”

“Either or,” is my easy retort. “No pressure.”

A breath soughs from her and with it, she seems to decompress. Her chest settles on mine and I wrap her up in my embrace. The skin-to-skin contact hits me in a way I didn’t expect. There’s low-level arousal, but this runs deeper.

It’s as if we’re connecting and she’s not the only one who needed that.

“It’s not even one AM.”

“So?” I stroke her hair. It’s like silk against my fingers. “You against cold pizza?”

“Cold pizza?”

“We can nap, wake up, share that last slice of cold pizza, which is better than hot, then go back to sleep if you want to.”

“You’re a heathen,” she accuses, though she doesn’t argue as I roll us onto our sides, keeping an arm hooked over her waist. “Coldpizza is so not better than hot.”

“I think you’ll find it is. All of the fat settles?—”

“Congeals.”

“—and the flavors develop. It’s like how two-day-old lasagna is better than fresh-from-the-oven stuff.”

“I want to argue with that but I can’t.”

“A woman who’s prepared to admit she’s wrong. I’m in love.”

“I never said I was wrong about the pizza,” she argues. “I’m not wrong. I’m right. The base gets solid if you let it go cold.”

“It has a much better chew. And the pineapple is harder. You gotta work for the juice to burst on your tongue.”

I don’t know why but that has her clearing her throat. “You don’t mind working hard for some squirting action, huh?”

She can’t see it, but my eyes light up at her teasing. “Oh, you’ve no idea what I’ll do for some squirting action.”

“I’ve been on the competitive scene. I’m pretty sure I know the lengths the guys’ll go to get some pussy. Whatever the sport, men never change.”

I shrug. “We’re depraved animals.”

“At least you call it how you see it.”

“That comes as a surprise after our multiple conversations?”

“Oh, yeah, so many. Three.”

“Three’s more than zero.”

“Now I know you’re clever.”

“It’s a gift. You really like classical music?”

“Good thing, too, seeing as I rememberBolérobecause of it.”

“A match are we in heaven made.”

She stills. “You likeStar Wars?”

---