come for me to make the choice. “Two things. First, I don’t feel any sorrier for you than I do for me, so it offsets.” He didn’t speak, so I felt compelled to fill in his silence. “You know. Like in football, when both teams get a penalty on the same play and they cancel each other out?”
“I’m familiar with the concept of offsetting.”
“Well, you’re a baseball guy, so I wasn’t sure if you knew about football.” At least the pitch-blackness of the room hid the flush of my cheeks.
“Second?”
“Uh, second, we are not having sex. Not sympathy sex or any other kind of sex. There will be absolutely no sex in this room tonight.” Lowering myself to the bed, I snuggled into the crook of his arm, wishing I didn’t have such a vivid imagination and I hadn’t just said the word sex twenty times. Pretty pictures of all the things we’d done the night before horizontal mamboed through my mind.
Hyperaware of the smooth contours of his chest rising and falling with each semi-stilted breath he took, I imagined how he’d looked when he came out of the bathroom after his shower. His hair had been damp and pushed straight back, the ringlet ends brushing the nape of his neck. His flannel, plaid sleep pants rode low on his hips as he’d barefooted his way across the plush carpeting to his side of the room. The main attraction of the eye-candy extravaganza was the six-pack ab muscles forming a mouth-watering pattern across his stomach.
Good Lord . The mercury in the room climbed to hell hot. I blew my bangs out of my face.
“So, this is just two friends getting cozy in a completely nonsexual kind of way?”
“Right,” I squeaked then cleared my throat and tried again. “Right. Friends. Nonsexual.” Repeating the high points of his statement, I hoped my hormones would get with the program. That, however, was the exact moment Jace took the program in a very different direction.
He sat up, sliding his arm out from under my head. His other hand crept up my stomach until he had the tab to my zipper sliding down. “So, if one friend accidentally unzipped the other friend, there’s no harm because it’s a completely innocent action designed to help the first friend.”
My tone reached a high-pitched squeal, instigating visions of shattering glass. “Help?”
He snuck his hand inside the fabric of my jammies, and his index finger rubbed small circles on my stomach, each touch a feather against my skin. The temperature climbed another few degrees. “Your breathing was a little intense. I wanted to make sure your clothes aren’t too snug.”
“Oh.” Then, “Oh,” again in surprise when his lips touched the sensation-heightened skin of my abdomen. “Jace?”
Coming to my senses took a while, but when I did, I snatched the zipper upward in a panic.
“Uh, Lyric?”
His head hovered very near my left breast, and I, though no longer exposed, felt my pulse quicken. “Mm-hmm?” I concentrated on breathing in and out.
“My hair is caught in your zipper.”
That wasn’t something a girl heard every day. “What?”
“My hair is caught in your zipper.” He said it as though I needed extra time to process each word.
“Well, pull it out.”
“No. It’s still attached to my head. I’d like to keep it that way.”
I lay there wondering exactly how much karma could punish me in one day.
“Can you reach the light?”
I tried, but it sat a few inches beyond my reach. “No. Not unless we scoot toward the edge a little.”
“Okay.” His shoulder pushed into my ribs.
I scooted toward the side of the bed. When I’d moved close enough to the table, I flipped the switch then squinted hard against the brightness. I gazed down at him. His hair was tangled in the teeth of my zipper almost to his scalp. I bit my lip. “Maybe I could cut it out. Do you have a pair of scissors here?”
“Yea. In my travel sewing kit in the closet.” He bit the smart words out. “Of course, I don’t have a
“I’m familiar with the concept of offsetting.”
“Well, you’re a baseball guy, so I wasn’t sure if you knew about football.” At least the pitch-blackness of the room hid the flush of my cheeks.
“Second?”
“Uh, second, we are not having sex. Not sympathy sex or any other kind of sex. There will be absolutely no sex in this room tonight.” Lowering myself to the bed, I snuggled into the crook of his arm, wishing I didn’t have such a vivid imagination and I hadn’t just said the word sex twenty times. Pretty pictures of all the things we’d done the night before horizontal mamboed through my mind.
Hyperaware of the smooth contours of his chest rising and falling with each semi-stilted breath he took, I imagined how he’d looked when he came out of the bathroom after his shower. His hair had been damp and pushed straight back, the ringlet ends brushing the nape of his neck. His flannel, plaid sleep pants rode low on his hips as he’d barefooted his way across the plush carpeting to his side of the room. The main attraction of the eye-candy extravaganza was the six-pack ab muscles forming a mouth-watering pattern across his stomach.
Good Lord . The mercury in the room climbed to hell hot. I blew my bangs out of my face.
“So, this is just two friends getting cozy in a completely nonsexual kind of way?”
“Right,” I squeaked then cleared my throat and tried again. “Right. Friends. Nonsexual.” Repeating the high points of his statement, I hoped my hormones would get with the program. That, however, was the exact moment Jace took the program in a very different direction.
He sat up, sliding his arm out from under my head. His other hand crept up my stomach until he had the tab to my zipper sliding down. “So, if one friend accidentally unzipped the other friend, there’s no harm because it’s a completely innocent action designed to help the first friend.”
My tone reached a high-pitched squeal, instigating visions of shattering glass. “Help?”
He snuck his hand inside the fabric of my jammies, and his index finger rubbed small circles on my stomach, each touch a feather against my skin. The temperature climbed another few degrees. “Your breathing was a little intense. I wanted to make sure your clothes aren’t too snug.”
“Oh.” Then, “Oh,” again in surprise when his lips touched the sensation-heightened skin of my abdomen. “Jace?”
Coming to my senses took a while, but when I did, I snatched the zipper upward in a panic.
“Uh, Lyric?”
His head hovered very near my left breast, and I, though no longer exposed, felt my pulse quicken. “Mm-hmm?” I concentrated on breathing in and out.
“My hair is caught in your zipper.”
That wasn’t something a girl heard every day. “What?”
“My hair is caught in your zipper.” He said it as though I needed extra time to process each word.
“Well, pull it out.”
“No. It’s still attached to my head. I’d like to keep it that way.”
I lay there wondering exactly how much karma could punish me in one day.
“Can you reach the light?”
I tried, but it sat a few inches beyond my reach. “No. Not unless we scoot toward the edge a little.”
“Okay.” His shoulder pushed into my ribs.
I scooted toward the side of the bed. When I’d moved close enough to the table, I flipped the switch then squinted hard against the brightness. I gazed down at him. His hair was tangled in the teeth of my zipper almost to his scalp. I bit my lip. “Maybe I could cut it out. Do you have a pair of scissors here?”
“Yea. In my travel sewing kit in the closet.” He bit the smart words out. “Of course, I don’t have a
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