“Gabe,” Kent growls out a warning, but Gabe doesn’t take his intense stare off our little mermaid.
My heart thumps against the inside of my chest and I find myself holding my breath to see how she’ll react. Most people would look at me and think I’m the one who has the thickest walls. They’d be fucking wrong.
“Well,” Ariel’s eyes slide to me, “it doesn’t hurt any.” She winks at me, fucking winks at me, before she looks back at Gabe and holds his stare. “Have you seen him?”
I bark out a laugh and Kent is grinning so big I’m a little afraid he’s going to get stuck that way. Gabe’s eyes rove over Ariel’s face, a smile growing on his lips slowly.
“I knew you’d be feisty, little mermaid,” his voice is a husky rasp.
She reaches up and smooths her hair, her eyes narrowing slightly. “It’s the hair, isn’t it?”
Gabe chuckles and he shakes his head, “Naw, it’s all you.” He picks up his glass, his eyes moving from her face and down the rest of her body. “I like it.”
She preens slightly under his praise, and it feels like something has flipped in the night. We’ve spent some time getting to know our girl and letting her in to who we are over the last six months and there is a familiarity between us. She relaxes, seeming to realize the same thing and feeling comfortable with us the same way she normally does.
We fall into easy conversation even as a sexual tension underlies the entire experience. Do I want to grab her and take her back to my fucking cave so I can pump her full of my seed? Fucking hell, yes. I think I might even beg for it at this point.
The longer we sit and talk, the more okay I am with biding my time just a little bit more.
Not much, but just a little bit.