My stubborn muscles remained tense for one more second before relaxing under her touch. The pain and embarrassment already took care of my arousal, so at least that was one less thing to worry about.
“Do you want to open your card?”
I looked over at her, losing my breath entirely.
Flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, and wet, swollen lips that turned up into another smile.
I nodded. Words weren’t possible yet.
She plucked the card from the table and then pushed on my lower back, directing me to the living room.
She ran her fingers across the unfinished crocheted blanket almost reverently before asking, “Is it okay if I move this? Will that mess it up?”
I shook my head. “I have a stitch marker, so it’ll be fine.”
She cradled the blanket in her arms and draped it over the armchair. “Delly mentioned she had a brief crochet hobby. She didnotmention that you kept it up.”
I sat on the couch I was starting to loathe and shrugged. “Sometimes the station was slow enough that I could do a project in one sitting.”
She stroked the blanket again before disappearing into her bedroom. I stared after her pathetically, only looking away when she reappeared with the laptop. She set it on the armchair, then went into my bedroom and grabbed pillows for my foot tower.
My jaw tightened as we worked together to set it up.
After so many days of Cole and Delly fussing over me, I should’ve been used to this, but no.
I still hated it.
Anger and frustration were roiling inside me, and I knew that even though my immune system was just fine, there were other side effects that could linger after surgery.
Like mood swings.
Ireland grabbed the laptop and propped her back on the arm of the couch on my right, facing me. Her knees were bent slightly, leaving just a sliver of space between her bare feet and my thigh. It was too much space.
Reaching out, I grasped her calves and pulled her feet onto the top of my thigh.
The typing on her keyboard paused when I started rubbing circles on her ankle, then resumed. She melted into my touch easily, and it made me feel better than probably anything else could have. As she worked on her laptop, I took advantage of the opportunity to explore her, tracing her muscles, the lines of her bones, the dip of her instep.
Her eyes flicked to mine over the top of the laptop just as I pressed my thumb into her calf and stroked a line up to the back of her knee. She squirmed, the slit in her dance skirt and the loose material making my path easy.
I wanted to take it further. Especially after she’d made me come so intensely,twice, almost a week ago. I wanted to prove that I could please her body like she’d pleased mine.
“Indigo…,” I said, my voice more gravelly than I expected. “What time is it?”
Her eyes flicked down to her screen, then back to me. “Quarter till five.”
I nodded. “Delly gets off work at six, and you were maybe mentioning having dinner here tonight?”
She tilted her head as she looked at me, trying to pick up the thread of what I was saying. “Yeah…?”
I nodded again and bit my lip, the courage almost abandoning me. But then she stretched and flexed her leg under my palm, pointing her foot in a graceful extension in a way only a dancer probably could.
My arousal, myneedfor her, came back in full force as I gripped her calf and took off my glasses, leaning forward to set them on the coffee table.
When I kissed a path along her shin, the keystrokes stopped again. I turned to her blurry form, almost wishing I had my pad of sticky notes so I could write her this instead.
“I want to make you come.”
I couldn’t make out her expression, but I saw, and heard, her laptop close. And then Ifelther gaze on my cast.
