Page 35 of Until We're More
“Hey.” I skimmed my fingertips down the smooth skin of her arm. “I’d leave you here, but I worry you’ll have knots and kinks in the morning.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she squinted up at me. “Where am I?”
“The couch.”
She rubbed her neck. “Guess I’m not entirely used to being here instead of my apartment. Did you…have fun tonight?”
“Finn, Brooklyn, and Shane came over and dragged me to a party one of the guys was throwing.” Obviously I left out the bit about how they’d asked about her and kept on talking about her at the party. Brooklyn played cockblocker all night with every woman who so much as looked my way.
Unnecessarily, at that. I hadn’t been able to seriously think about sex with another girl since Chelsea showed up. Even the night at the bar, I’d only been fooling myself, and doing a shit job of it, too.
“Aw, I keep missing your brother and sister. I mean, I see them at the gym, but going out is different. You all are different outside the gym.”
“Brooklyn wants to play volleyball on the beach tomorrow. She asked me to see if you’d join us.”
“That sounds fun. Probably humiliating, too, but I’m down.” Her eyelids drifted closed, and she made a cute humming noise.
“What about you? Did you”—the burning in my gut made it hard to continue, but I forced out the rest of the question—“have fun?”
“It was…yeah. It was…nice.”
Nice.My mind flashed back to my earlier sentiment about taking care of her in bed, and it would be far from nice. Sex that was nice was take-it-or-leave-it sex, the kind you might skip in favor of changing clothes while on the run from bad guys. I wanted to push her up against the wall. To leave her breathless with my kisses; tease her into a panting, needy state; explore every inch of her skin with my hands and mouth; and make her scream my name.
But I couldn’t think about that, even if inside I was celebrating the fact that she looked unrumpled and definitely not like her date had gone any further than perhaps a polite kiss.
“Need me to carry you?” I asked, hoping she was sleepy enough to miss the desire-roughened edge to my voice.
“No. I’ll…” She yawned, and her eyelids drifted closed again. “Eventually.”
Yeah, right. I was still slightly buzzed, but not enough that I couldn’t easily carry her. Not enough to prevent thoughts about her legs in that dress or her red lips or that amazing hair that she’d better never dye, either. I stepped around the couch and scooped her sleep-warmed body into my arms.
George gave an offended meow, his expression even grouchier than usual, and I tightened my grip on her.She’s mine tonight, dude.
At least for the few minutes from here to her room.I took my sweet time, soaking in the way her delicate features showcased her full lips, her silky hair against my arm, the press of her curves, her scent, all things Chelsea. Since she never bothered making her bed, I didn’t have to peel back the covers. I gently set her down and considered her dress. It probably wouldn’t be very comfortable to sleep in, but it’d be hard not to get carried away and drag my fingers over more of her skin, and on top of that being a bad idea, she wasn’t awake enough to okay it, so it was a definite no go.
“Hey, wait,” she said as I turned to leave. “Remember when we used to snuggle up and watch movies?”
“And you’d always insist on a second movie, even though you fell asleep during itevery single time.”
A drowsy version of her signature smile curved her lips. “Yeah. I miss that. You’re a really comfy pillow.” She stretched her arms over her head, and her eyes drifted open. “Did you know they have these boyfriend pillows? They look like a headless dude with one arm.”
“Disturbing.”
She laughed. “But then you can snuggle on his”—she made sloppy air quotes—“‘chest,’ while his ‘arm’ is around you. Like, seriously, you wrap the stuffed arm around you.”
“Do you have one of these pillows?”
Her attempt at a dirty look was valiant but still too cute to be scary. “No. I’m pretty sure if you order one, it sends an alert to your friends and family so they can stage an intervention.”
I leaned a hip against the doorframe, wanting to keep her talking in the half-sleepy, semi-drunk-sounding state—apparently I wasn’t sick of talk, just the wrong people doing all the talking. “Wouldn’t they lose money if they did that?”
“You’d think. But see, the friends and family shame you, so you have to get rid of it. Only by that time, you’re too used to it and now rely on it to fall asleep, so naturally you buy another one and pay the company even more money if they promise not to alert your family. Anyway, that’s what I think they should do, if they were smart.”
“No wonder you’re in marketing,” I said with a chuckle. “Evil genius stuff right there.”
“Sadly, it still wouldn’t be as good as the real thing. You were always so warm, and your heart was, like, the perfect white noise.” She patted the spot next to her. “Come on. Let’s have one of those heart-to-hearts where you keep shushing me and claiming you’re missing the movie.”
I was about to point out that there wasn’t a movie playing, but before I could, she added, “Although sometimes, if I talked long enough, you’d get chatty, too—well, chatty for you. Those were my favorite nights.”
