Page 60 of The Great Dating Fake Off
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yes. Other than that champagne, I haven’t finished a drink in hours.” She drops to her knees at the very edge of my new floor bed near my feet, exhaustion painted in her eyes. “Gia’s asleep curled up on the bathroom floor. I begged her to at least sleep in the bed, but she refused to leave. I created a little towel bed for her, though.”
The visual of that makes my chest hurt, her doting on a drunk person. “You did your best.”
She fights a smile. Her gaze falls. “Should I go? I don’t know if you want to be alone with them, in case one of them needs girl help.”
“Don’t go.” A second wind blows through my tired body. “In case one of them needs help, or they get scared waking up in a dude’s room.”
She chews her lip and peers over her shoulder. “Okay.”
I pat the floor beside me. “This is all I have to offer.”
She crawls forward on the blanket, eyes still pinned to me.
Every pure thought I ever had about her incinerates in an instant. I’m possessed by a vivid fantasy of her crawling right up to me and swinging her leg over my hips. My hands climbing her thighs. The way she’d look from that angle, poised to wreck me. I’d make her leave that stupid tank top on and wrap it in my fist—
The hallucination disappears with a poof when she lies down on the sliver of blanket between me and the TV stand. “Mike and Molly. Great show.”
I massage my tense face, because there’s not one relaxed inch of me right now. “I have no idea what this show is. Not a big TV guy.”
She rolls on her side to face the TV, placing the smooth expanse of her neck and bare shoulder half a foot away from my face. “Give it a chance.”
I take a steadying breath. “I will.”
Every inch between us feels electrically charged as we watch the show. Or more accurately, I watch her watching the show because everything about her is distracting: the way her fingers absently toy with the hem of her shorts, the way her legs slide together when she slightly shifts positions, the sound of her breathing.
How good it feels not to be alone. To be with her.
My interest shifts between her and the show until my eyes grow heavy. I drift into that first stage of sleep, not restful but not conscious, so much so that when she rolls over to face me, I’m not sure if I’m awake or dreaming.
Lips parted, her finger taps the tattoo on my biceps. My skin registers the sensation of my cotton shirt, then the warmth of her fingertips against my bare skin.
“What is the significance?” she nearly whispers.
I twist my arm. My muscles flex. “I scaled Everest a few times.”
Her smile is almost reluctant. “The fact that I’m not sure you’re kidding is why you are a danger to all women under the age of sixty.”
“That’s a nice way to compliment my lung capacity.” I pause. “I got it to remember the only real family trip we ever took. We spent a week in a cabin in the Appalachian Mountains. My parents, grandparents, and I.”
“That’s a great reason to get one,” she murmurs, a dash of awe inher tone. She nudges my sleeve higher to see more. Her touch is impossibly soft.“It looks good on you.”
I think I could break a sheet of plywood clean in half right now. Maybe with my teeth.
Her skin against mine makes me reckless. “I want to see yours.”
She shifts onto her side like we’re watching TV again, her entire body parallel with mine, almost no space between us. So close. In this position, the ink above her right elbow is perfectly visible as her arm rests on her side.
My mouth drifts closer to her ear. The television has settled into a grittier show that takes place at night, so the light is scarce. Dark enough for trouble. “What does it mean?”
With every deep, shaky breath she takes, her back lightly bumps my chest. “One day is a lyric. My mom has the other half—to believe in you. It’s from her favorite song.”
I drag my thumb across the letters. My face moves to the hollow behind her ear as if magnetized. She smells as good as I know she’d taste if I kissed her there, sweet with a dash of salt. “But what’s your favorite song?”
Her mouth falls slack and a tiny sound escapes. I want to collect it on my tongue and feel her lips against mine with an urgency that borders on desperate. The distance between us is swallowed up as she arches into me.
“That one’s written on my ribs.” Her tone is tinged with smoke and suggestion as she reaches blindly for my hand. Clasping my fingers, she guides them to the hem of her tank top. “Want to see?”
