“I think my bar’s been too low,” I say. “I’m raising it right now.”
“Don’t set it atfrog slippers,” he says. “It should be a fucking high jump. You deserve a goddamned pole vault.”
His voice is rough.
“Rhys,” I say helplessly.
He freezes, and our eyes meet. For a long time. Longer than people are supposed to stare at each other, until all the molecules in the room hold still.
No, not all of them. The molecules in my own body—those go crazy, rioting everywhere, but especially at the pulse point in my throat and the tips of my nipples and in my molten core.
Then the microwave beeps, and he looks away, clearing his throat. He opens the door, pulls out the frog slippers, and hands them over. Then he starts pulling things out of the paper takeout bag like it’s a task that requires a hundred percent of his attention.
21
Rhys
We sit at the hotel-room table—Eden in her frog slippers—and eat the Indian food, which kicks ass. I Googled the best Indian takeout in Spokane.
We don’t talk much, which is okay. Actually, it’s great. It’s that kind of comfortable you don’t get that often, when you’ve spent a lot of time with someone and it feels right to justbe.
When we’re done with dinner, I put the leftovers in the fridge and carry our trash down the hall to the big trash can near the ice maker.
I make a detour to retrieve our laundry, and when I come back, the frogs are in the microwave again. “Do your feet still hurt?”
“They’re still sore,” she admits, pulling them out as the microwave beeps and sliding them on.
Don’t do it,I tell myself.
But apparently I suck at listening to my own advice, because I set the laundry on a chair and say, “Sit.”
She gives me an arch look. “Like a dog?” she teases.
“Please,” I amend. “Have a seat on the bed.”
She furrows her brow, but I repeat the request—the nice version—and she does it, hoisting herself back against the stack of pillows. I sit beside her and lift one of her feet into my lap, warm frog and all.
“What are…?”
“Shh,” I say.
I slide the slipper off and take her foot in both my hands.
At that moment, I know I’ve made a mistake.
It’s just a foot, but it’s full of her nerve endings and the pulse of her blood through her veins and all the things that make her alive to the touch. It’s warm under my hands—extra warm from the frog. And as I dig my fingers and thumbs into her sore muscles, kneading and trying to ease the tightness, her eyelids get heavy, and her lower lip softens enough to tell me it feels good. Her breath hitches at first and then slows—and mine matches it, like we’re tuned to the same frequency.
It would almost be easier if she were writhing and moaning, putting on a show of enjoying my touch. She’s trying to keep her pleasure under wraps, but she can’t hide it from me, which does something primal to my snake brain.
I want more. I want to glide my hand up the inside of her calf to the hem of her skirt, loose and summery, to where her thigh goes pale and soft. I want to follow my hand with my lips. My tongue. I want to push her skirt up around her waist and bury my face against the cloth covering her, and I want to nudge my nose against her clit and breathe her deeply. Then I want to push the fabric aside and?—
“Mmm,” she murmurs, and I feel it like a shot of adrenaline. My cock is hard, inches from her foot resting on my thigh.
I set that foot aside and switch to the other one. Eden sinks lower onto the pillows, and I force myself to stay in the moment. This is what I can do for her right now, this is to make up for everything that’s gone wrong—Teller, and then me choosing to represent Teller, Milo the dog, her money, Paul jilting her.
She’s had a shitty time, and I can do this in the most unselfish way possible.
Her eyes drift closed, and I stroke my thumb over the sore arch of her foot and try not to stare at her face. At the long lashes throwing shadows over the curve of her cheeks, at the softness of her mouth, relaxed and peaceful and so, so lush. At the strands of hair that I want to push behind her ears.
