Page 21 of Star-Crossed
She was silent at first—the entire couch shook as her curled-up body shook with an internal combustion of mirth.
Which only made Cy laugh harder.
His abdominals seized almost painfully. Tears streamed down Lyra’s cheeks as she at last dragged in a whistling gasp that brought a face approaching an alarming shade of magenta back toward a non-EMS-requiring pink.
“I mean…seriously,” she said, wiping her cheeks with the sleeve of her belted sweater. “What the fuck did you do?”
“The crazy part is,” Cy said, then paused to wait for more air, “the nearest farm was over a hundred miles away. And it wasn’t even missing any cows.”
This set them off on round two.
Cy glanced up to see Larry staring at them from the bookshelves beside the TV, her yellow eyes narrowed in rebuke.
Like that little asshole had any place to judge.
“Oh my God,” Lyra moaned in husky, wrung-out tones he’d only ever heard in one other context.
After he’d made her come.
He violently shoved the thought into a locker and mentally spun the combination lock as they again recovered their composure.
Or what little of it remained.
The combination of hysterics and beer had slackened both their bodies in ways that did nothing to help Cy’s already stirring blood. Her hand still rested gently on his, only, not on the back of the couch.
But on his thigh.
Seven inches higher, and her long, elegant fingers would be brushing his—
“Maybe it was the ghost of the cow our bus hit in high school!” Lyra blurted with a rush of excitement.
Her fingers tightened on his knuckles in a flash that traveled up his arm, through his chest, and straight to the root of his cock.
“Did you ever think of that?”
Cy wasn’t sure which shocked him more—that Miss Practical actually seemed to be suggesting this as a viable possibility, or that she didn’t realize that she was effectively holding his hand.
He was almost afraid to answer. Didn’t want the return to reality to make her break the contact.
“Briefly,” Cy admitted. “Until animal control had to come herd it out of the way so the paramedics could get to me.”
“Was it hurt?” Lyra asked.
“A little,” Cy said, piqued by her concern. “But now it’s out at my sister Kiki’s place. None of the local shelters would take it.”
The furrow returned to Lyra’s brow. “But I thought you went to college in Michigan.”
“I did. Had to arrange an entire convoy to get that fucker back to Townsend Harbor.”
A cheap ploy on his part, trotting this out, but well worth it to see the way her entire face softened.
Forehead. Eyes. Cheeks.
Mouth.
“This doesn’t change anything, you know,” she teased. “And it doesn’t mean I forgive you for completely ignoring me after you kissed me.”
“One,” Cy said, “I know my memory isn’t a hundred percent, but I definitely remember you being the one to kiss me. And two, Itriedto talk to you, but you resorted to vengeance via eighteenth notes.”
