Blind Side(39)

She was just… there.

“Isn’t this… crazy?” she asked me around a mouthful of Cheetos when we were halfway through the second episode we picked. It was High Seas, and glow-in-the-dark creatures that lived far in the depths of the ocean were swimming across the screen. “It looks like it’s CGI. But it’s not. This is real.” She paused, waving her Cheeto about like a wand. “I mean… that’s real. That weird glow-in-the-dark fish that looks like an alien lives right here on the same planet as us.”

She popped the chip in her mouth, shaking her head.

“I know aliens are real. I mean, it would be ridiculous for there to be so many universes and not a single other planet has intelligent life on it. But whether we will ever communicate with them? I don’t know. But this?” She gestured to the screen. “We have aliens right here. We have a whole other galaxy we can’t even fully explore because we can’t dive that deep. How wild is that?”

I smirked, arching a brow at her as she continued staring at the screen wide-eyed and chomping on the dusty orange chips.

She was so strange, and intelligent, and curious, and full of wonder. She was like a child and a grown ass woman somehow wrapped up in one.

Giana must have sensed me looking at her, because she glanced my way before sucking the crumbs off her fingertips and asking, “Do you want to talk about it?”

I cracked my neck, looking back at the screen. “Not really.” I paused. “But… thank you. For this,” I added with a nod toward the TV. “It helped.”

She smiled, a little shimmy of her shoulders telling me she was proud of that. “Good.”

The light from the television battled with the shadows of her room, casting her figure in a soft blue light. I followed the length of it down to her cleavage, the sliver of skin showing above her sweatpants, all the way down to her feet and back up again. I couldn’t explain it, but there was something so comfortable about her in that moment, something that begged to be held.

That beast inside me reared its ugly head, rattling against the cage and demanding my attention. And I didn’t know if it was for her or for my own selfish desire that I did what I did next.

“So…” I cleared my throat. “Now that you’ve made me feel better…” I angled myself toward her, propping my chin on the heel of my hand. “Wanna practice?”

Giana frowned. “Practice?” she echoed around a bite of a pretzel dipped in beer cheese.

When she looked at me, I just cocked a brow, hoping the salacious smile spreading on my lips would be answer enough.

Her lips parted, eyes popping open wide before she gulped down the bite in her mouth. “Oh, my God. Practice! Yes!”

In a feat of agility and speed, she dropped what was left of the pretzel in her hand and cleared the plates and snacks from the bed between us. She hastily shuffled them into the kitchen before all but skipping back to the bed and jumping into it, landing on her knees and clapping like a little kid.

“Okay. What do we do?”

I smirked, sitting up to join her, but as soon as I did, she gasped and leapt out of the bed.

“Wait!” she exclaimed, and then disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the faucet running and a quick two minutes later she was back. “Sorry. Cheeto breath,” she explained.

I barked out a laugh at that. “I’m not worried about your breath. And besides, I’ve been eating the same shit. Do you want me to go brush my teeth?”

“No. Cheeto breath wouldn’t make you disgusting the way it would on me. You’d somehow find a way to make it sexy.”

I licked my bottom lip, amused, and Giana rolled her eyes before smacking my chest playfully.

“Come on. Focus. Tell me what to do.”

She carefully removed her glasses next, setting them aside before she was tuned back into me. And the way she was perched there, propped up on her knees, her chest swelling and falling, eyes eager… it was the sweetest, most intoxicating sight. She watched me like I had all the answers, like I was her lifeline.

Like she trusted me with everything that she was.

Swallowing, I ignored every voice inside me that warned against what I was about to do, and I moved into her, framing her body with my fists against the mattress as she leaned against the headboard.

“Lie down,” I commanded.

A flash of desire pooled in her eyes as she obeyed.





Giana



I was consumed.

By the darkness of my room, the incessant pounding of my heart, the towering mass of Clay’s body as he lowered me down into my sheets. His rough voice reverberated in my ears, the command low but firm.

“Lie down.”

I submitted, and as my back came flush against the mattress, Clay slid on top of me, nestling his thick frame between my thighs. The heat of it sent a chill down my arms, one Clay smiled at before he smoothed his knuckles along my chin.

“Relax,” he said. “We’re not going all the way tonight.”

I frowned, sagging into the sheets as Clay chuckled and tilted my chin. I was ready to protest, to point out the fact that Shawn had my freaking number now and I could be alone with him at any moment, completely unprepared. But before I could argue, Clay spoke again.

“Don’t look so sad, Kitten,” he teased, pressing a kiss light as air to my jaw. “There are many things that come before that, and trust me when I say you won’t want to skip them.”