The Feel Good Factor(35)
“It’s nothing anyone else wouldn’t do.” He shrugs. “What about you? I take it you’re close to Shaw, even though it seemed like you wanted to wallop him the other day.”
I laugh. “That about sums us up. We needle each other pretty much all the time. I think it’s because we’re eleven months apart. We’ve always competed for everything.”
“Everything?”
I finish my last bite and set down my fork. “Yup. We were in the same grade at school too.”
He smiles. “No kidding.”
I hold up a hand to vow. “It’s the truth. I was the youngest, and he was the oldest, and I was kind of crazy motivated, but he was too. We competed for everything—affection, praise, sports, grades, who did chores faster. It created this bizarre dynamic. Still does.”
“But it works for you guys?”
“Weirdly, yes. I love him madly, but he exasperates me, and I know he loves me, even if we want to kill each other sometimes.”
We finish dinner and as we wash our plates, Derek mentions Arden. “I met your friend at the bookstore earlier. She said she’s known you since you were six.”
I smile widely. “She’s like family to me. So is Vanessa. We’re all so close.”
“She seems like she looks out for you. And I had the distinct impression you told her about me,” he says with a sly note as I set the last plate in the dish rack and turn off the faucet.
I wipe my hands on a towel. “And what gave you that impression?”
He shrugs in that way that cocky men do—casual, sexy, confident. “The way she checked out my ink. Almost as if she was told about it by a certain . . . kitten.”
I snap the towel against his waist. He grabs it and tugs me close. “It’s okay that you like my tattoos. You can touch them too.”
Like that, he lights the match, and the fire in me roars through the roof. I’m a flame around him.
Maybe right now, I’m not so flame-resistant. I run my eager fingers up his strong, muscular arms, then down them too, tracing the sunbursts and bands, loving their look, savoring his skin.
He murmurs, a husky, raspy sound that heats my blood, that makes a pulse beat between my legs.
“There’s more to touch, Perri.”
“I know,” I whisper, dancing my fingers down to his birds, tracing the outline of one, then another, traveling perilously close to the waistband of his shorts, and what lies beneath. What I desperately want more of.
He breathes out hard, rough. For a second, maybe more, it hits me—I have this power over him. He wants me in the kind of bone-deep way I want him. Sure, he’s told me from day one, but his body says, undeniably, how much he craves me.
Resistance, I remember.
I need it.
There’s so much at stake. The job. The rent, since I haven’t had a reliable tenant in ages. My goals, because I want that promotion. I’ve worked my butt off for it. I need to keep my eyes on the prize.
I dust a quick kiss against his delicious lips. “No mercy, no sympathy.”
“Damn your mantra.”
“Our mantra,” I correct.
He steps away, his dark eyes holding my gaze. “Kitten, I’d like to find out how strong your resistance is. And I fully intend to test it.”
“How will you do that?”
“You want to win your kissing contest, right?”
“I do.”
“Then we will be practicing every night. And you’ll be practicing your resistance. Mark my words.”
With that, he turns, heads to the stairwell, then up and out of sight.
It takes every ounce of my resistance not to follow him up the steps.
20
Perri
The next morning, I find a note on the chalkboard.
What about air kisses? That’s a category for sure. We could own that one.
I laugh, grab a piece of chalk, and write under it.
No doubt you’ll find a way to practice them.
I snatch a peach and head to the backyard. After taking a bite of the fruit, I fill a pitcher from the spigot and water the plants on my deck, musing on air kisses as I feed the thirsty fern, the grateful tomato plant, and the ravenous blueberry bush.
“All better now?” I say to the plants.
They sigh contentedly, I imagine. I sigh happily too, chewing a bite of the peach as I wonder how exactly we’d own the air kiss category. We’d ace it . . . that’s the trouble.
I head inside, toss the peach pit in the compost bin, erase my first note, and write a new one.
After all, we’re in the midst of a new competition. A who-can-hold-out one. With a pastel blue piece of chalk, I write a new response in curlicue letters.
I can absolutely resist your air kisses. Just try me.
Dusting off my hands, I snag a spoon and grab a yogurt from the fridge. I dive in, feeling a little zip from my snappier retort. I pop in my earbuds as I eat at the counter—standing up, thank you very much—and I toggle over to the morning news, catching up on the latest in local politics, then check on press releases from nearby agencies before I switch to the scanner to see if there’s anything going down that I need to know about.