I looked down at myself in confusion. Yeah, I didn’t have a shirt on but that wasn’t really cause for—Oh.
I guess she was referring to the part of me that was hovering at half-mast ever since Ceci had run her soft fingers along the back of my neck.Oops.
I took a step closer to the counter, hoping to hide my lower body beneath it just as my brothers materialized in the space beside Tine. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you guys.”
Clay locked eyes on me and spread his arms out wide, just as dramatic as his sister. “What the fuck, man?”
“I agree,” Clint said. “What happened to you last night?”
I pursed my lips. “I had an emergency.”
“Is everything okay?” Tine asked.
“Fine.”
“You were talking to someone on the phone last night. Who?” Clint asked.
I shrugged, crossing my arms over my chest. “No one important.”
Those were not the right words to say when the“no one important”in question was hiding right by my legs.
I was standing right in front of the little cabinet that Ceci had climbed into, guarding it. Upon hearing my comment, she reached an arm out of the door and pinched the shit out of my shin.
I hissed. Backing up a couple of steps and swatting her hands away before moving out of her reach. Her cat-like eyes held my attention as she slowly retreated into the cabinet, looking less like a girl and more like a ghoul from a grim fairy tale. Her words sending chills down my spine.
“Karma’s a bitch, Con,” she whispered, the words a promise.
Cautiously, I moved further out of her reach. My family just peered at me curiously.
“What the hell was that?” Clay asked, giving me a weird look.
“Uh,” I looked around the kitchen awkwardly for something to grasp at. Swatting the air a couple more times, I laughed lamely and said, “Mosquitos. The pesky things won’t leave me alone.”
Clint looked at me strangely and Tine lifted onto her toes so she could see over the edge of the table. But my attention was snagged on the little arm emerging out of the cabinet, a hand feeling around on the ground in search of something.
What the hell was she doing?
Next she popped her head out. Then shoulders, then another arm. Was she coming out?The hell she was. Not when I was half dressed and her being here would make it seem like we…
Nope!This was not the time to reveal our friendship. Not when it could be misconstrued as a hookup or something.
I moved forward again, shuffling my feet at Ceci to herd her back into the cabinet, and this time, I made sure to stay put in front of her.
This must have been her plan, because next thing I knew, I felt the brush of her fingertips over my bare toes. And a sound came out of me that I could not control.
Involuntarily, my feet did a little dance to get away from her fingers.
“Connor?” Clint said slowly, looking at me with raised eyebrows.
“Gotta pee? It looks like you’re doing a pee dance,” Tine asked, but all I could focus on was the little muffled snorting noise that had to be Ceci laughing.
“Um, yeah. I guess I do,” I forced out, barely able to say the words before she did it again, this time her light touch going on the inside of my foot and wiggling.
That same embarrassing sound left me again.
I was ticklish. CeciknewI was ticklish. And the embarrassing truth about being a grown man who was ticklish, is that yes, you still giggle. Which had my brothers looking at me like I had lost my mind.
I tried to kick at her hand while also trying not to giggle like a schoolgirl but the result was some sort of painful constipated looking dance that just made my family think I was being suspicious.
