The tease of our fingers drew on, weaving in and out, sliding together and then apart. I watched our fingers as they grazed through each others’, gently and thoughtfully, enamored by the sight of skin touching skin.
“Says the twenty-one-year-old,” James quipped, easy humor riding his deep voice.
“Still legal.”
He paused for a tortured second, thumb curling around mine.
“So you’ve said.”
Dead center in my chest was a tightness I hadn’t expected as I laid against him. It made every breath a little harder to breathe. Every second just a little longer. Every skim of his warm skin just a little bit hotter.
Maybe it was the nature. Maybe it was our intense circumstances or his nightmare. Maybe it was all of it. Whatever had caused it, I didn’t know.
All I knew was how I felt with his fingers through mine, threading in and out as he breathed hot air down my neck at an even pace that relaxed the muscles it touched.
I didn’t feel hate and I didn’t feel the fire. Not even a simmer of it. All I felt was the tightness in my chest that didn’t exactly hurt but also didn’t feel totally great.
It just felt.
The longer I watched his fingers playing with mine, careful to keep away from the gash, the harder it was to keep down the images I’d seen play out with those very fingers just this morning.
His hands. His body. Guard down and wet head to naked toe.
I smiled as I thought about saying it and flushed all the way down my neck when I did.
“I saw you getting off in the shower this morning.”
Fingers ripped straight out of mine, his breath pulling short. Laying against his chest, his heartbeat picked up, thumping against my back as if in punishment for watching him.
He’d been in the shower so long, it was becoming painful to hold in my morning pee. So I got out of bed, fist ready to bang on the door and demand he get out.
I never expected to find the door cracked.
I never expected to find him like that.
“What were you thinking about?” I asked once he didn’t react with words.
James dropped his hand to his side.
“That’s private.”
“Seemed like it was something really good,” I started, a playful line pulling through my tone. “Something super legal, I bet.”
The silence that followed was so fucking quiet, I rolled my lips together to keep from laughing and ruining it. Both of our chests rose as one as James breathed deep, his exhale an audible irritation in his throat.
My stare was on my hands as I reveled in his discomfort when plump lips cusped my ear, and my eyes shot up and wide.
I didn’t dare move as the lips hovered my earlobe, breathing out a slow stream of hot air right against it that sent an aggressive shiver down my neck. I was stiff as a fucking statue as he grazed his soft mouth just once up and down the whole thing, tingles shooting off beneath my skin.
Whatever he was doing, he was doing on purpose, but I didn’t know what the fuck it was.
A hitch caught in my throat as his mouth tested right against my ear, and I stupidly wondered if I was about to feel the nip of teeth or the sweep of his tongue too.
Fuck, every sense I had was hyper-aware as hot breath and hotter words came through his husky voice as he whispered right in my ear.
“Goodnight, Queen of the fucking Underworld.”
All of me stopped as my brain registered what he’d said and the teasing fucking undertone of it all.
A hearty chuckle bubbled up my throat and drifted through the air, a smile stuck on my face as I nestled back into James. I fell asleep in minutes, finally warm instead of burning.
Comfortable for once.