Page 8 of Snake Eyes (Out of His League #2)
I take his other wrist, grabbing hold of the beat and letting it course through me. It’s catchy, some country track I know all the words to. “You swing your hips,” I say, with a hint of a smile. “Like this.”
Garrett cocks an eyebrow, his expression serious. “There’s only one time I swing my hips, ma’am, and it’s not when I’m dancing.”
His meaning strikes me like a bolt of lightning, binding me in place as the image of Garrett’s hips in action flashes through my mind.
Just like it did last night when I was alone in bed.
His snort pulls me back to the present, where a lopsided, rakish smirk has taken hold at the sight of my reddening cheeks. “I thought that’d get ya. ”
Whatever masculine magic that grin is comprised of is contagious, and I quickly find myself grinning along. “If you’re not going to dance, then the least you can do is get me a drink.”
Garrett moves behind the bar, ducking down to the fridge where I keep my own personal supply of sparkling water. Flavored, obviously. I’m not a lunatic. He pours me a glass and slides it across the bar. “On the house,” he murmurs, shooting me a wink that has me thinking of those damn hips again.
Being on this side of the bar affords me a different view than I’ve become used to over the last few days, and I notice a framed photo that I’ve not paid much attention to previously.
The background is swarmed with people dressed in smart Army uniforms and berets—a military base, perhaps?
But it’s the two men front and center that I’m looking at.
“Is that you?” I ask, walking around the bar to get a closer look.
I internally wince as another period cramp strikes me, dodging the Advil I took this morning after it first arrived.
The first day of my period is always the worst, but I’m going to do my darndest to ignore it.
“It is,” Garrett confirms, his eyes on the photo.
“With my dad down in Texas after I qualified as a 31K. A military dog handler,” he adds, seeing my blank expression.
“It’s a stupidly rare job to get, but I got lucky.
Right place, right time.” A long sigh flows out of him.
“Dad always had a photo of me in this spot—from the time I was in elementary school all the way up to the Army. Always some kind of graduation ceremony or another.”
“He must have been so proud of you.”
“I hope so.” The melancholy in his tone makes me want to hug him, but he clears his throat before I get a chance to say anything. “So you want to have a Halloween party? ”
“Oh.” I blink, dodging whiplash from the sudden change of topic. “Uh, yeah—yeah, actually. I think it’d be a great way to kick off a new chapter in the bar’s history.”
Garrett edges an elbow onto the squeaky clean bar, narrowing his eyes slightly. “With live music?”
I nod excitedly, freeing a few more blonde strands from my messy bun. “Ideally a local band.”
Now it’s Garrett’s turn to look taken aback, his brow twitching. “Not you?”
“ Me ?!” I cough out, inhaling a mouthful of sparkling water into my nose.
“Well yeah.” A flicker of confusion touches his brow. “You mentioned putting on live music at the bar you worked at before—and I’ve heard you singing in the shower.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach. “No, I just meant we hosted live music at the bar. I didn’t sing myself.
” I can feel my cheeks beginning to burn.
I don’t think I’ve ever properly sung in front of another person.
I mean, I hum and mumble along to songs all the time, sure, but putting on a show is something different.
Doing it in earnest opens me up to criticism.
“I didn’t realize you could, uh, you could hear me in there. ”
“It’s a little muffled,” he says, shrugging as he glances down. “But yeah, I can hear. Tell you the truth, it’s become one of my favorite parts of the mornings—drinking my coffee at the table, watching Hunter stalk through the woods, listening to you singing.”
The confession is so sweet it almost breaks me into a million tiny pieces .
A barely-there smile tugs at his lips, and I find my gaze catching there. “I guess that kinda makes me glad you’re not singing.”
“In what way?” There’s a sharp stab of period pain, but I manage to keep it off my face.
Those eyes remind me of pools of chocolate melting over an open flame—hot enough to burn but sweet enough that I want to fall in all the same. He leans in like he’s relaying some great secret. “Cause it means I get to keep it all to myself.”
There I go, melting all over this freshly-cleaned floor.
My exhale is a tender, embarrassingly audible sigh.
I feel the moment his gaze drops to my lips, as though the earth quakes beneath me. Neither of us move, but somehow the space between us seems to shrink, taking all the air in the room with it. “Is it bad if I feel the same way about you?”
He frowns, but there’s surprise lurking in his expression. “About me?”
In my ears, I can hear my heart pounding, the blood rushing through my body. “With everyone else, you’re… brusque at best.” He looks down, almost bashful. “But you’re never like that with me.”
Those eyes dip down to my lips again. “You…you seem to skirt under my defenses.”
I find myself leaning forward almost subconsciously, as though my body has already decided for me—and it wants him . Reaching out, I weave my fingers with his, feeling the rough callouses rasping against my palm. “You don’t seem all that angry about it. ”
The curve of his lips is half amusement, half scorching heat. There is a quiet, unyielding strength in his chest as it rises and falls with his breaths. “Not in the slightest,” he murmurs.
“Garrett.” My voice is little more than a velvety hush. “Will you kiss m—?”
He closes the distance between us before I can finish my question, stealing my breath away. His lips are hungry against mine, desperately stoking the arousal that’s been burning within me, sending renewed need into my veins.
I dig my fingers into the fabric of his shirt, gasping against his lips. He kisses like he’s starved for it, as though all he’s been waiting for is me to ask. His hand caresses my cheek as he breaks away from me, both of us breathing heavily. “You don’t even realize…”
He trails off, shaking his head—but I’m not letting him get away that easy. “What were you going to say?”
His thumb brushes over my bottom lip. “That I’m losing my fucking mind over here, Charlie.”
“About?”
Garrett’s gaze seems to sink into my very soul.
“About you .” He threads a hand through his hair.
“Fuck, you’ve rewritten everything I thought I knew about myself.
A month ago, the idea that I would have someone staying in my home was laughable.
So was the idea that I would want to spend every waking hour with another person.
And the idea that I’d be asking you to stay even longer. ”
Warmth begins to spread in my chest like rays of sunlight, heavy and golden and perfect.
He shrugs like a man glad to accept defeat. “And yet here you are.”
“Here I am,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him into another kiss.
“Thank fuck for that,” he chuckles against my lips. His hands rest on my hips as he walks me backward—until my spine meets the wall.
This time, the heat of his kiss carries more of a slow, smoldering heat, and arousal begins to pool beneath my navel at the feeling of his body against mine. I whimper as Garrett’s kiss moves down to my neck, deepening the needy ache inside me.
But the next noise I make isn’t one of pleasure—it’s one of pain. I hiss through clenched teeth, hunching over slightly as a full-force period cramp strikes me, and I think my valiant Advil might have fallen in battle.
Garrett recoils, his hands hovering an inch above my skin. “What did I do?”
I grit my teeth as the next one hits me, my body curling involuntarily. “It’s not you,” I say eventually, stumbling over to the nearest chair before the pain returns. “It’s just cramps.”
“Cramps?” He crouches in front of me, brows knotting together in concern. “Like food poisoning?”
“Period cramps,” I clarify, giving him an apologetic look. Please don’t be weird about it. By now, I knew it had only been Garrett and his dad when he was growing up. It seemed unlikely that he’d been exposed to the wonders of periods growing up.
Nodding slightly, he pauses for a moment, before—
His eyes lock onto mine, and there I am, in danger of drowning in them once more. “In that case, how do you feel about spending the evening curled up on the sofa watching a movie with a hot chocolate?”
With him? “Sounds like heaven.”