Again, Murphy didn’t have the best body in the gym.
He had definition along his abs, but they weren’t a six-pack.
Not even close.
But it was his shoulders and chest that had my mouth going so dry that it felt like I was swallowing saw dust.
He had a chest full of hair.
I wanted to run my fingers all along those wide, expansive plains, feeling every dip and groove.
I really, really wanted to pause at the small discs of his nipples and pay homage to those, too. With my tongue.
“You stare at me like you’re starving, and I’m Thanksgiving dinner,” he rumbled.
I watched, fully engrossed now, as he slowly started on unbuttoning his jeans.
He wasn’t wearing a belt.
That meant that his pants were sagging slightly, and the bright green band of his boxer briefs was showing.
The band of his boxers dug in slightly near the hip area, and the smallest roll of fat near his love handles could be seen now.
I wanted to run my lips along that line, too.
“I feel like I’m about to wake up from a dream that even my own mind couldn’t do justice,” I admitted. “I’ve been wanting this for so long that it doesn’t seem real. Any second, you’re going to yell ‘psych’ and take off. And then I’ll really feel like crap.”
He unzipped his pants and allowed them to fall to the floor next to his ever-growing pile.
I took in his jet-black boxers with neon green accents, my eyes automatically moving to the one spot next to his junk that was stitched in bright green thread.
It made his dick look obscenely large.
So large, in fact, that I now had a small amount of trepidation coursing through me.
“I…” my voice trailed off when he reached for my own shoes, followed shortly by my socks.
I wiggled my toes, causing him to smile.
“Nice toes,” he said.
I looked down at them.
They were in sore need of a touch-up. Or hell, they might as well start all the way over due to how ragged the bright green nail polish was.
“I haven’t had time to make it to the nail place lately,” I admitted.
You know. Six months, give or take.
There just wasn’t enough time in the day, unfortunately.
“Maybe if you’re nice, I’ll do them for you,” he teased.
There’d been one time when we were smaller that I’d begged him to paint my toes, and he had.
He’d done a worse job at doing them than I had with my left hand.
I was surprised he remembered.
Or admitted it.
He’d sworn me to secrecy.
“I’m always nice,” I lied again.
His eyebrow quirked up on one side, and I couldn’t help the answering laughter that poured out of me.
Okay, so I wasn’t always nice.
In fact, I was more often mean than I was nice.
It was just the way I was.
I couldn’t help the fact that people were dumb.
Nor could I help the fact that it was easier to just do everything myself rather than depend on anyone else.
“Take your shirt off,” he ordered.
Flames instantly hit my face.
Unlike my sister, who looked good with her shirt off, I did not.
I had a mom-bod.
I had flabby skin, a small pudge, and my boobs had stretch marks from where they’d grown so fast with Vlad.
The last thing I wanted to do was show him my stomach.
Yet, upon seeing my hesitation, he took matters into his own hands and casually wrapped his whole hand around my ankle and pulled me down to the bottom of the bed as if I weighed nothing more than a feather.
I gasped as my back slid against my crappy cotton sheets.
Never before had I found the slide of them against my skin as erotic.
But in this instance, when Murphy was the reason for that feeling, I knew that every time it happened from there on out, I would forever remember this instance in time.
“Shirt. Off,” he urged, his hand smoothing up the length of my calf now.
His callused hands were catching on my leggings, and a tiny shiver of delight started to trickle down the length of my spine.
I never thought I could find that erotic—calluses hanging up on fabric because normally, when it was me, I was all…ewww, gross—but when it was him? When it was Murphy’s hand on my leg, and his skin doing that thing against the weird fabric? Well, I thought it was sexy.
I was so damn weird.
“Sorry,” he said when he pulled his hand away.
I leaned forward and pulled my shirt off in one brave move.
His breath hissed in, and my face flamed.
I was super, duper self-conscious now that I didn’t look the same as pre-Vlad.
But before I could so much as overthink a single thing, Murphy growled in approval. “Goddamn, but you’re beautiful.”
Surprise and elation lit up inside of me at his words.
“Even in a sports bra with my mommy belly?” I asked, wincing as soon as the words left my mouth.