Page 53

More than that, I’m staring straight at Loomis as I clearly rolled over in my sleep. My hand is on his chest, right over the steady beat of his heart, his skin warm, smooth, and hard beneath my palm. His hand, however, is under my shirt. His fingers are splayed across my ribcage, and the curve of his hand into his thumb is acting like a bra as it rests just beneath my breast. Our chests might not be touching, but our legs sure as hell are. In fact, they’re completely tangled together.

And I think… yep, he’s got some serious morning wood action going on if the long, solid ridge poking into my hip is any indication.

There’s no way I can move without waking him and alerting him to our position, and I’m not yet ready to face that moment, even if the desire to disentangle myself is as real as the desire to roll him onto his back and ride him. It’s incredibly unfair how gorgeous he looks right now. With his full lips slightly parted and thick black eyelashes lightly fluttering against his cheeks and his blond hair in wild disarray. It’s even worse how good his body feels against mine. And then there’s his hard dick, which is practically shooting laser beams of lust at my vagina.

I know my nipples are hard because I can feel them popping through my damn thin tank top.

So yeah, I need to get up. And then I need to kick his ass out of my bedroom and pretend like none of this happened. Something I seem to do a lot with him. Which is why I’m going to do all of that right now. I am. Any second now, I’m going to move, and he’ll wake up and?—

“I can feel your brain going bonkers,” he murmurs. “That’s how loud your thoughts are. They actually managed to wake me up.”

“Ha-ha.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Your hand is acting as a bra.”

He blinks his eyes open, and I’m met with gunmetal gray, the same color as the stormy sky outside the window. “I noticed that. I wasn’t going to say anything about it because I didn’t want you to knee me in the bollocks, which you easily could from this position.”

“That might hurt a lot considering you’re hard.”

A smirk slides up his lips. “Noticed that too, did you? I’d say that’s basic morning male biology, but I think this has more to do with waking up beside a beautiful woman than anything else.”

“You don’t have to flatter me.”

He chuckles lightly as if what I just said is completely ridiculous. “My sweet little mermaid, I am not flattering you. I’m stating a fact.”

“Are you calling me Ariel?”

“Who?”

I roll my eyes. “The Little Mermaid. Her name is Ariel in it.”

“Oh. No, I’m not. I’m calling youmylittle mermaid. I didn’t know her name was Ariel. I’ve never seen the movie, and Vander didn’t mention that.”

“Vander? What?”

“Never mind that.”

“Ugh. Why did I let you sleep in here? If I wanted smoke up my ass, I’d buy a hookah and do it myself.”

He snorts a laugh but almost immediately turns serious when he realizes I’m not joking. “You don’t know how lovely you are, do you? Or, moreover, how lovelyIthink you are?”

I raise a disdainful eyebrow. “You don’t?—”

“I know I don’t,” he snaps, irritated to no end. “I neverhave to.” His hand cups my cheek, and he stares straight at me, his expression intense and heated. “Keegan Fritz, I think you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Everything about you does it for me. Look into my eyes and dare to call me a liar.”

My breath hitches, but I immediately brush his comments away. He’s an actor. I’m doing a lot for him, and he feels, well, obligated to say that, I guess. If he meant that, then something likely would have happened last fall when I went out to LA, and it didn’t.

“We should get up.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just continues to stare at me, his eyes searching my face as if he’s trying to figure something out.

“Did your twat of an ex never tell you that? How beautiful you are.”

“Stop,” I bite out, not wanting him to bring up Alden. Especially not like this. “Just shut up already. I don’t want this from you.”

“Because you know I mean it, or you don’t think I do?”