Not My Match (The Game Changers, #2)(56)

Keeping my voice calm and even—oh my God, you have a creature of death on you!—I lean over and stare him straight in the eyes. “Devon. Listen to me. The tiny spider is on your right arm.”

On your biceps I’d like to lick when the monster is gone.

“It’s as big as a quarter, with multiple eyeballs—eight to be precise, arranged in three rows—and sharp fangs. I think it’s a wolf spider. Agile hunters with poisonous bites when provoked, which we have done. Those bites hurt and sometimes require hospitalization. I know of a case where a healthy grown man nearly lost his foot from a bite.”

He freezes, searching my face. “No joke?”

“Dead serious.”

His face loses its mirth. “You’re messing with me.”

I shake my head slowly as I lean over him. “You know I don’t lie.”

His chest twitches, as if he’s going to move, and I hold my hand up for him to stop.

“Not so funny when it’s on you, is it?” I smirk.

He glares at me. “Kill it.”

I rear back. “I like you at my mercy. In your towel. What if the little fellow hops on your towel or under it? Now that would be interesting.” I let out a dark chuckle.

His throat moves. “Giselle, come on, baby doll, beautiful girl, kill the motherfucking spider.”

“I can’t! I wanted you to do the dirty work. I don’t want near it.” I pause. “Plus, it didn’t bite me, and she’s just trying to live, and she probably has babies—”

He groans, his eyes darting to his side, but from the angle he’s at, he can’t see. “Oh, so now it’s ‘save the spiders’ in here. Five minutes ago, you wanted me to crush her—how do you know it’s a female?”

I take a step closer to him, sliding closer as I bend over him. “Because she’s carrying her babies.”

“Are you telling me there’s, um, like lots of spiders on me?”

“Hmm.” I grab my phone from the nightstand.

“This isn’t the time to check your Insta,” he growls, glaring at me.

I snap a pic of him sprawled out on my bed. That’s for later. I peek at him from behind my cell. “Since you can’t move, do you mind if I move the towel a little, just to see—”

“Lethal spider. With babies. Lots of venom. Football season. Must be healthy. Towel is not important right now, Giselle!”

I sigh. “Spiders have an acute sense of touch, by the way—it’s what the hairy legs are for—so don’t move, m’kay?”

“Giselle, are you screwing with me? I can’t feel anything. Is she really there?”

“Shh, let me read up on this,” I murmur as I quickly check Google. “Yep, I was right. ‘Wolf spiders carry their young on the dorsal side of their abdomen for weeks, even after hatching. No other spider is known to do this.’ Which means we can’t kill her, Devon. Regardless of how she tormented me, she was probably just hunting food for her babies and got tangled in the sheets. We have to get her out of here uninjured. No telling how many fanged spiderlings she has. Hundreds.”

His nose flares.

“Okay, I have an idea.” I dart out of the room, and he begs me to come back.

“Not laughing now, are ya?” I call back and hear an answering growl.

After grabbing a large bowl from the cabinet, I dig through the kitchen drawer for the longest kitchen utensil I can find, snatching a two-foot wooden spatula that I bet he uses on a grill. Perfect.

“How you holding up?” I say as I come back in the room.

“I felt something. Did she move?” he says in a wary tone.

“Nope. Still there. You’re just paranoid.” I creep closer.

He bites his lower lip as he eyes the spatula. “Are you going to hit me with that?”

“Of course not. I’m going to swoop her into the bowl.”

He takes a breath, slow and steady. “Sweep her away from me, not toward me. If it gets on my face . . .”

“Trust me.”

“Trust the girl who screamed so loud I’m shocked the police aren’t here? Okay, okay, sounds good.”

“I think Cindy likes you. She might be sleeping.”

He rolls his eyes. “Fucking Cindy? Stop trying to figure out the damn spider, and get it off me. Please.”

“I like it when you say please.”

“Please, please, get Cindy off me,” he groans.

I inch in closer on the foot of the bed, perpendicular to Devon. “I want something in return.”

“Just ask,” he bites out.

“I want to see you naked—not now, because you shouldn’t move, but later, after the rescue.”

His eyes find mine and lock, the pupils dilating in a rush, pushing out the forest green to nearly black. And his voice is thick when it comes. “Deal.”

Steeling myself, and it’s easy because I get a treat at the end, I hold out the spatula a few feet from Cindy and swing, knocking her as gently as I can. She sails off his shoulder and straight to the floor. I grab the glass bowl and place it on top of her. “I just scored,” I say and look back at Devon and grin.

He gets down on the floor with me, and we stare at the bowl. “She’s not that big.”