Page 18 of Live for Me

But I absolutely needed to hear those words from her to stop me, because she was about seven seconds from being crushed into this mattress under me until she was screaming.

I put my arms around her instead and squeezed the rest of her against me for a few seconds. When her fingers dug into my hips at just that tiny amount of extra contact, I forced myself to let go of her. But I absolutely grabbed her face another time to kiss her forehead before I’d allow her to run for it.

Except I was instantly willing to bet everything I owned on the fact that she was experiencing—for the first time in her life—what a forehead kiss from a man might mean, by the way that it seemed to plaster her right in place on that bed while I tried to back away from her just a little.

I turned right back around and planted my ass directly in front of her on the bed again. The way she laughed set my heart on fire.

“I’m willing topausea massage for a forehead kiss, not abandon it entirely. Get back to it, angel. Save those lives by relieving the tension.”

I put all that effort into calming my dick down just for her to send a fresh rush of blood right back to it when she crashed into me from behind to wrap her arms as far as she could get them around me.

She was significantly more comfortable and bolder about interacting with me when she wasn’t able to see my face. And everything about that was fucking adorable.

Memphis didn’t initiate physical contact with me very often, but those moments when she did…those moments felt like I needed to find a way to bottle them up and save them to be able to relive that feeling any time I wanted. I grabbed the hand that was pressed against the right side of my chest to kiss the skeleton hand tattooed to the back of it. She’d already repainted her fingernails after she spent most of the drive here chewing on them. Black. Always black. Black clothes, black hair, black nail polish, black makeup.

She shifted back up to her knees behind me and dug those fingers right back into my shoulders. Her bony little hands weren’t anywhere near strong enough to make a real difference in the stiffness there, but I’d sit here for however long she planned to keep touching me.

Until my phone vibrating next to me on the bed interrupted that fun. I glanced down at Indy’s name and chuckled.

“You might want to stay quiet if you don’t want to have to answer his questions,” I said and reached for the phone.

She laughed and slid her own finger across the screen to answer it before I ever made it there. She pushed the button to put it on speaker while I just stared at it in shock.

“I’ve got another one for you, Indy,” Memphis said and paused. “Live in thy current moment. Or suffer dire ends.”

I raised my hand in the most confused fucking gesture while I tried to turn my head to look at her, but she promptly put her hand against my cheek and turned my whole face away from her again.

“The fuck?” I mumbled.

“Did you—? Which one of you did I call?” Indy asked. “Did you just answer Utah’s phone? Isn’t it like one in the morning?”

“I tried to tell you,” I said to her quietly and stood up to face her. “What do you?—”

I couldn’t even remember what I’d started out trying to say when Memphis shifted on that bed to get comfortable and ended up with her feet right next to my phone. Before my brain could intervene, my hand grabbed her by an ankle and dragged her entire body back down the bed so I could stare at her foot like a motherfucking maniac. She giggled and tried to squirm back instantly, but there was absolutely no chance of that happening.

All black everything for this girl.

Except some bright ass orange nail polish on her toes.

CHAPTER NINE

memphis

Of course, he fucking noticed.

If anyone anywhere was going to pick up on something as tiny as the color of my toenails, it was going to be Utah.

And there were suddenly no words left in my brain to try to offer an explanation.

Because what the fuck would I say?

Oh, they’re always orange.

Nobody on Satan’s burning Earth would believe that shit.

“So, should I maybe hang up? You guys doing something naughty?” Indy chimed in to save my ass. “I can call back in like half a second, but on FaceTime?”

There was most definitely something burning in Utah’s eyes now. Something that hadn’t been that kind of crazy just a few minutes earlier.

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