Page 54 of Thunder with a Chance of Lovestruck
“Was that your tongue I felt wrapping around mine a little bit ago?” he countered, a knowing look on his handsome face. “I could have sworn it was your tongue. And is that your hand on my…”
I blushed. “Stop it.”
“Why? Because you don’t like hearing that you want me too?” he asked, drawing attention from those walking by.
Anyone who had ever spent any amount of time in New York City knew it took a heck of lot to grab attention.
“Drest, keep your voice down,” I said, trying to steer him out of the center of the sidewalk while simultaneously getting my hand back from him.
“No,” he said, his lips slanting over mine.
I opened my mouth, giving in to the temptation of him, only to snap to my senses. I jerked my hand back from him. “What is with you?”
“I spent twenty-eight months wanting you,” he said. “The time has come. I’m taking what I want. So we are clear, Rach, that something is you.”
I glanced around. “We’re in public. Could you try to be quieter?”
He stepped back from me, tossed his arms out (which led to an impressive wingspan on his part), and put his head back. “World, I’m totally head over heels for this woman, and I don’t care who hears me say it!”
My face heated as several people glanced my way.
A woman who was carrying a toy poodle in a clutch bag pursed her lips, lowered her thick black sunglasses, and gave me a nod of approval. “Oh sweetheart, you could do far worse than that one. Just look at him. Bet he’s something between the sheets.”
Laughing, Drest lowered his arms. “I’m told I look like a hair-puller.”
The woman flashed a smile and reached for me, patting my arm on her way past. “Never pass that up.”
I wanted to crawl under a rock and hide for a few years. This attention made me feel more vulnerable than the media, who had been camped outside of my family’s home for months.
Drest cleared his throat and began to sing. Stunned, I stood there with my mouth agape for a good minute as he belted out lyrics to an Aerosmith song. It was a ballad about being so in love with someone that you didn’t want to miss a moment with them. Taken aback by being serenaded in the middle of the street and by the fact Drest had an amazing voice, all I could come up with as a reply at first was a grunt.
It was at that moment that I realized I’d wasted all that time and energy on an education because the smartest thing I could come up with was something a caveman could have accomplished.
Blinking, I came to my senses. “What are you doing?”
The look he gave me was hilarious. “Hon, if my singing is bad enough that I have to explain it—”
I shook my head. “No. It’s fine,” I said, glancing at the people walking by us. “Better than fine even. It’s good.”
“Gee, I’m, uh,almostflattered,” he said, grinning.
I sighed. “Drest, seriously, what do you think you’re doing?”
He put his thumbs in his belt loops and raised his shoulder some. “Kind of thought I was doing your idea of punishments. Or don’t you remember the time you were going to force Henry to have a sing-along?”
Understanding what he’d been going for, I found it harder and harder to be upset with him. I licked my lips. “You forgot to put on skates and to dance too.”
“That was next,” he said, hunger in his gaze.
“Sorry I interrupted then,” I returned. “Continue.”
“Am I forgiven?” he asked.
I tensed.
Drest put his arms out again, appearing ready to start making sweeping declarations again.
I shot forward, tugging on his arms to get him to lower them. “Ohmygod, stop!”
