Page 19 of Light Up The Night
He shakes his head. "No, you didn't. But there's lots’a ways to be funny."
"Nor was I attempting to be funny."
"I know, sweetheart."
"So if I did not tell a joke and was not attempting to be funny, how was your laughter not directed at me?"
“Itwasdirected at you, but not with a mean spirit. It was…fuck, I don't know how else to put it. The way you said that—'very well, I shall wait,'" and here he chuckles again, grinning and shaking his head. "So fuckin' cute. Just makes me laugh. "I just think you're so goddamned cute I have to laugh."
"Ah," I say. "I begin to comprehend. You find me entertaining in the way one finds babies funny when they do something that is inadvertently comical."
"Yeah," he murmurs, tracing his thumb over the seam where my lips meet. "Except you sure as hell ain't a baby."
"No, I am not. I am a fully grown woman of twenty-four years."
"And a really, really beautiful one," he says. Before I can process this, he steps back and turns away. "Lemme get changed real fast. Just hang tight and I'll get you fed."
"Riley," I call, and he stops, turns, and glances at me. "You need not make haste on my account. I shall not perish of hunger if you wish to shower as well as change."
"You sayin' I stink?" His expression communicates merriment, I believe—he is teasing me.
"No!" I protest. "You do possess a…erm…musk following your exercising, but I…I confess I do not find it altogether unpleasant. I merely wished you to know that I am content towait, should you desire to take longer to prepare for departure than a swift changing of your clothes."
He grins, turning back and stepping closer to me than before—so close all I can see is him, all I can smell is him. And his scent is…problematic. Before I can ruminate further on this, he sidles even closer, and now he is no longer grinning. He is searching me intently, his expression serious.
“‘A certain not altogether unpleasant musk," he murmurs to me, repeating my words. "Meanin', youlikehow I smell."
"I…um."Warning, warning, warning!Pheromone levels are peaking. "My subconscious is reacting to the androstadienone in your sweat, creating a pheromonal response over which I have no control."
"No clue what an andro-what-the-fuck even is, Gorgeous, but I know what a pheromone is." He's close—so close. So big. So…muscles. And…skin. And heat. Everything is upside down in my brain and body. "But what I hear you saying is…you like how I smell."
"No, I…yes. Sort of." In refusing to look at his eyes—because I cannot—I find myself staring at his chest.
Beads of sweat drip and trickle, and a shaft of sunlight streams through the window to turn the beads of sweat into glittering diamond drops. I want to touch one. I want to touchhim.
"Go for it," he murmurs. "I don't bite."
"Eeeep!" I squeak. "I said that out loud?"
"Eeep?" He echoes. "Did you just say…eeep?"
"No. I did notsayanything. It was an involuntary ejaculation."
His head drops and his shoulders shake. "Ah shit. Don't say it, Rye. Donotfucking say it."
"Are you speaking to me?" I ask, absolutely baffled.
"No, to myself, " he whispers. "I'm tryin' so fuckin' hard to be a good boy, Cadence. I really fuckin' am."
"I do not understand."
His eyes, twinkling with mirth, search my face, a soft, kind, amused smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm startin' to get that. You're all kinds'a innocent, aren'tcha?"
He closes his eyes and lets out a slow sigh, a mannerism which I take to mean he is exercising extreme self-control; over what, I cannot say. He circles my wrist with his fingers, holding gently, carefully, as if I am made of the most delicate porcelain, and lifts my hand to his chest.
I gasp at the contact—his skin is sweat-damp, soft to the touch yet hard as iron, and so warm. I press my palm into the firm, springy muscle, and then dimple my fingers into it, and then slide my fingertips over the slick, soft surface, marveling internally at the way it feels…the wayhefeels under my hand.
Watching his expression carefully for signs that he wishes me to stop touching him, I allow myself to explore the hard expanse of his chest until my hand covers his heart. I feel his pulse thudding rhythmically under my palm. It is a hypnotic tattoo under my hand, and I find myself wishing desperately that I could put my ear to his chest and listen to it.
