I don’t reply; using the show to distract her was child’s play. Besides family, there’s one thing Eden is obsessively passionate about—Game of Thrones. In the past, I’ve tried to watch a few episodes of the first season with her. Couldn’t do it. Tapped out after Aquaman died.
I drop to the couch—and am now vividly aware of how much of it I take up. Where the hell did she get this thing? Little People ‘R’ Us?
“Why?” she quietly asks. “Why did you stay?”
The note of vulnerability in her voice has my fingers curling into my palms. I can’t touch her. Can’t smooth my thumb over the sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Can’t trace the tempting dent above her top lip.
“Because you wouldn’t ask me to.” I give her back almost the same words she said in my apartment weeks ago. It’s stupid, mentioning that night, because I can’t think of that selfless, sweet, completelyEdenembrace without remembering what came after it. And as I stare into her eyes, and they darken from brown to nearly black, I see the memories there. Whether she wants to recall them or not, she’s thinking about grinding on my thigh and then my cock.
When she turns away, rubbing her palms up and down her arms, I wonder if maybe her mind switched to when she froze after coming on my finger. And why.
“Do you want another beer?” she offers, heading toward the kitchen.
I doubt it’s a sudden thirst that propels her out of the room and away from me. But I don’t call her on it, because I need that space, too. Space and a couple of minutes to remind myself of why I’m here instead of at the bar with Jude and Simon, finding someone who can help me try to fuck Eden out of my system. It hasn’t happened yet. But who knows? Tonight could be the night.
Keep hope alive ‘n’ all that shit.
“Yeah, thanks,” I agree, picking up the remote off the coffee table in front of me. Out of habit, I search for the Cartoon Network. Many a night when insomnia has me in its grip, I’ve watched Japanese anime on this channel and my DVDs until dawn breaks. And now, as Sasuke Uchiha fills the screen, I lean forward, propping my arms on my thighs, and am immediately drawn into one of my favorites. The rogue ninja is in the middle of a fierce battle with his brother Itachi. I’ve seen the episode before, and this fight is one of the most epic in the entireNarutoseries.
“I should’ve known better than to leave you alone with the television,” Eden drawls, reappearing next to the couch. I glance away from the screen long enough to accept the beer she extends toward me. “You’re lucky you helped me move. Or else I’d confiscate that remote.”
“It’s cute that you think you could,” I murmur as the battle and the episode comes to its conclusion on the screen. I click the guide button to see if another one is scheduled. Damn. No, butHunter X Hunteris. Hunter Gon Freeces searching for his missing father is my next favorite show. Settling in, I stretch my arms along the arm and the back of the couch.
“Holy shit. Did you just”—she releases a loud, exaggerated gasp—“tease me?” She sets her own beer on the table—on top of a coaster—and runs to the window that looks out on West Newport Ave.What the fuck?
She jerks back the curtains and peers outside, her head swinging from left to right.
“What’s wrong? What’re you looking for?” I push up from the couch, halfway to my feet when she spins around to face me.
“I was looking for the rainbow-pooping unicorn and the pig with wings riding on its back. Because if you’re making jokes, they can’t be far behind.”
I stare at her, my brain taking a moment to catch up with her words. Laughter rolls up my chest, warm and a little unfamiliar. A chuckle escapes me, and shaking my head, I return to the sofa. A smile curves her lips, brightening her eyes until they’re soft like melted chocolate. God, that smile. It was the first thing about her that seized my attention five years ago.
Like some cliché romance movie shit, I’d glanced across the VIP section of the club where we’d gone after my fight and seen her. Standing uncertainly by the door with a friend, shoulders drawn back and tense, delicate chin lifted, body poised as if caught halfway between staying and bolting. All the people packed into that room, and it’d been her who had captured my attention.
Nah, that didn’t accurately describe what’d happened that night. She’d grabbed every sense, every heartbeat, every organ, every brain cell that made existing possible by the throat and forced them to function just for her. And all because of that smile of shy innocence tinged with the hint, the promise of untapped sensuality. And fuck, had I wanted to be the one to explore it, introduce her to it. Before I could reason with myself that this wasn’t some John Hughes ’80s movie, my feet had unglued themselves from the floor, and I’d headed across the room.Mine. The word—the claim—had echoed in my head like a hammer striking an anvil. Loud. Strident. And over and over.
Then Connor had stepped to her. Blocking my view.
Blocking me.
I blink, the memory shattering like glass but leaving behind just enough shards to remind me that like that night, I can’t have her now. Contrary to what my primitive mind had roared back then, she isn’t mine. Never has been.
Never will be.
“I need to sit down,” Eden says, retracing her steps and dropping onto the chair next to the end of the couch where I’m seated. She smirks, curling her legs under her. “I think you just smiled, and that could herald anything from a patch of the sky plummeting to a zombie apocalypse.”
Shaking my head, I take another sip of my beer. “I’m not that bad, Eden.”
Actually, I probably am. And from the arch of her eyebrow, she agrees with my inner-me.
“Umm, okay.” She snickers, reaching out and snagging the bottle she’d set on the coffee table. If God Himself beamed down on a highway paved in gold bricks and punched the shit out of me, I still couldn’t have stopped myself from staring at the gape in her V-neck T-shirt as she leans forward. Blood thunders in my veins. Yeah, the glimpse of sun-warmed sandy skin cupped by black lace would be worth that celestial haymaker.
“I can remember each and every time I’ve seen you smile,” she continues, tilting her head to the side. Peering at me with a scalpel-like perception that has me fighting not to gather up my shit and break the door down trying to get out.
I’m used to MMA fans recognizing me, ogling me, mentally weighing me. In the gym, in the ring, during an interview, and now, from a tattoo chair—they don’t bother me. I’ve become accustomed to it.
But sitting here, one-on-one in a small apartment with only feet of space between us, I feel exposed in a way standing in an Octagon with just a pair of shorts on and cameras and thousands of eyes focused on me never has.
