Page 18 of Light Up The Night
He swaggers over to me, gleaming and glistening and distractingly attractive, even under the awful, garish fluorescent lights. "Nope." His eyes scan my face, although I couldn’t guess what he hopes to see there. "Do you want me to inquire further?"
I shake my head. "Not at this juncture, no."
“Yeah, I can tell." He uses his index finger to brush an unruly lock of hair away from my eye, and where he touches, my skin tingles. "I'd love to know more about you, Cadence Creswell, but only if you wanna tell me."
I hardly know what to say—a dozen lines of thought run through my brain concurrently, and he is so darned distractingly beautiful that I find it hard to seize on any of them.
"I…" I take a sip of coffee, but it's so thick and bitter, even with cream, that I cannot swallow it. "Mmmm!"
I stagger up the stairs and spit the coffee out into the sink, find a glass, fill it with water, and then rinse out my mouth.
I hear him on the stairs, and then I become aware of his presence in the kitchen with me—he fills it, exuding dominance and heat and masculinity.
"You need not interrupt your workout," I say.
"Eh, I was done. That was my last set."
"I see." My stomach gurgles noisily, alerting me—and Riley—to my hunger.
He grins at me. "Gimme a minute to clean up and then I'll take you to get some tea and something to eat."
"Very well," I answer. "That sounds lovely. Thank you. I shall wait."
He snorts softly, smiling at me in a way that I cannot quite translate. Is he laughing at me? I am used to being laughed at, but from him, for some reason, it would hurt more than from others. I do not care to examine why this might be, as I do not think the answer will do me any favors.
Curiosity, however, overwhelms even embarrassment. "Why do you laugh at me?" I ask the question while unable to bring my gaze up even near his.
He steps closer to me, and I catch the scent of his sweat, which I would normally find unfavourable and off-putting, but from him, for further reasons I shall not be examining, I do not find at all distasteful. "Hey, I'm not laughing at you."
I frown. "You need not lie, Riley. I am aware that I am strange to you. I have been laughed at all my life."
His index finger, loosely curled around an invisible trigger, meets the underside of my chin and brings my head up. "Cadence. Hey."
I shake my head. "Mmm-mmm." I turn away. "Do not, please. I understand."
He ducks until he is within my line of sight, and then straightens, that finger still tugging my chin up. "Iwasn'tlaughing at you, Cadence. That's not what that was. I promise you it wasn't. You're the last person on earth I’d ever make fun of."
Discomfort wriggles in my belly like a worm on a hook. "Riley. I know what laughter is, and I most certainly know what it looks like when it is directed at you."
"There's a lot in what you just said that I'd like to get into, but not right now." The pad of his thumb snags at my lower lip, tugs it ever so slightly, and then drifts down my chin, hesitates, and then slides ghostly soft over my lower lip. I cannot breathe when he touches me. My heart pounds frantically. "I did laugh, yes. But Cadence, it wasn't…" He shakes his head, and while I am far from anything like an expert on facial expressions, his seems to express genuine dismay, as if he is troubled by something. "I wasn't laughingatyou in the sense of mockery. Swear to fuckin' god, I wasn't."
"Then I do not understand why you laughed.”
"Because you're so fuckin' adorable!" he says, the words seeming to explode from him, sudden and intense.
"Adorable?" I echo. "Please elucidate."
He snorts again, this one openly derisive. "Yeah, no clue what that word means. I'm an uneducated bumblefuck, sweetheart. Gotta use small words with me."
"A bumble…what?"
He laughs, shakes his head. "Just a dumb word I made up to be funny."
"Oh. I see. Well, elucidate means to explain. To make clear."
"Got it." His thumb seems curious, drifting across my upper lip; I dart a glance at his eyes, and they follow the path of his thumb, as if there is something fascinating about my lips. "Notsure what there is toelucidate, Cadence. You're adorable. Cute. Fascinating. Funny."
"I did not tell a joke."
