Page 63 of Nerdelicious
My stomach unknots itself and backflips about forty times.
He stops typing. Eyes flick to mine.But I didn’t think I had a shot.
“Then why did you ask me to help you with Caroline?” My voice is quiet and confused. I’m surprised he can hear me over the pounding of the rain.
I thought you and I could just be friends and she was safer.
“Safer?” My world is shattered. No, not shattered,transformed, like Doctor Strange transmuting a gun into a swarm of flies.
She was interested in me. You weren’t. I didn’t have cause to hope until the lake, and then
He stops typing and we lock eyes. He shrugs.
My mind plays over our time at the lake. The hot decadence on the beach followed by my own insistence that we remain friends. I rejected him, just like he thought I would.
“I’m still not safer.”
I’ve decided to live dangerously.
A surprised laugh startles out of me. “I guess I’ve been playing it safe, too. But I like you. I think I’ve liked you from the beginning and I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Because I can’t repeat the same mistakes I made with Jack.”
I don’t want you to give up anything for me. I’m not Jack.
“I know you’re not.” Even though part of me wishes he would ask me to give it up for him. But he’s right, he’s not Jack. He wouldn’t ask it of me, and I won’t do it. And I can’t be the Jack in his life. I can’t ask him to give up Grace and Jude, his life in Blue Falls for me.
“So. I guess we’re doing this. Whateverthisis.”
He smiles. A slow grin that moves across his face and takes my breath away.
I lift a hand, wanting to touch the pleasure revealing itself on his face. Before my fingers make contact, he grabs my wrist, turning his head to set a kiss on my palm. The move is affectionate and arousing. There’s still a trace of a smile on his face when I lean forward and capture the hint of joy, this time with my mouth.
He doesn’t stop me and we spend endless minutes exploring each other with lips, tongues, fingertips.
When I straddle his thighs, dipping to avoid knocking my head on the ceiling, I praise the powers that be for creating bench seats. His arms surround me, and I’m wrapped up in him, content and secure. His hands tug through my hair, pulling out the ponytail, sending my hair cascading around us and cradling my head in his hands while we kiss and play, tender and turned on all at the same time.
Throbbing desire weaves its spell around us, expanding like a thick cloud. I pull back before we can get sucked in too far.
“Will you tell me your real name?”
He spells it out with his hand.G-E-O-R-G-E.
“George?” I laugh, meeting his gaze. “That’s—wait, no.” I gasp, clutching at his hand.
He tugs on a strand of my hair, eyes worried, then lifts his hands in awhat?gesture.
“That makes us Fred and George.”
He tilts his head, eyes narrowed.
“We’re basically the Weasley twins.”
His eyes widen and then his mouth is twitching.
“Okay, no. We can’t make out now.” I slap his arms in frustration. “They’re brothers. This is all wrong.”
His head drops to my shoulders. He’s shaking. I put a hand on him. “George? Are you... laughing?”
A discordant rumble emerges from his throat.
