She looks at the screen and her eyebrows rise. Then she brings her focus back to me with a curious look on her face. “She’s adorable. And so not the kind of dog I would expect you to have.”
“Why’s that?” I ask with a straight face, knowing the reason. Daisy is a cream-colored miniature Pomeranian who weighed about four pounds the last time I took her to the vet. She looks like she should be some blond-haired, blue-eyed valley girl’s lapdog.
“You just seem like you would own a Rottweiler or Doberman,” she says with a shrug.
“Is that so?” I raise an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry. that was rude.” She looks back down at the phone.
I put a finger under her chin, bringing her eyes back to me. “I’m just kidding. I know she doesn’t fit my image, but she’s mine. I rescued her while I was on a job when she was just a pup, and I had to bottle-feed her. She was so small she fit right in the palm of my hand,” I tell her, holding up my hand and smiling.
“Aww…you’re a proud papa.” The smile she gives me has me wanting to lean in and taste it.
“I guess I am.”
She goes back to looking at my phone, and I go back to watching her. She is beautiful in a way that is completely natural; none of it is fake or for show. It’s just her—who she is. She hands me my phone back, looking around before putting her eyes back on mine. “So, um…do you want to watch a movie or something?”
“Sure, if you’re up to it.”
“Yeah. I have Netflix and On-Demand, so you can pretty much pick whatever.”
I follow her into the living room and sit down on the sofa to watch as she sets up the TV before coming back to sit next to me. Her couch is small, so it forces her to sit close.
“What would you like to watch?” she asks, turning her head to me.
“Doesn’t matter.” I twirl a small piece of her hair that has fallen out of her messy bun around my finger.
“How about The Breakfast Club? I haven’t seen it in a long time,” she suggests, unconsciously tilting her head towards me.
“Sounds good.”
I want to kiss her. My brain is battling against my body, wanting to get closer to her, wanting to taste her mouth again; it’s taking everything in me not to close the small gap between us. I watch her eyes flare slightly, and then she licks her bottom lip, making me wonder if she is thinking the same thing.
Sophie
I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Looking away from Nico takes all my power; I’m so drawn to him that I wonder if it’s normal or healthy, and it makes me second-guess things. I don’t want someone just so they’ll fill the hollow places inside of me.
“So, The Breakfast Club it is, then,” I say, trying to be casual about it in an attempt to cover how nervous I’m feeling.
“Sounds good,” he replies, sitting back against the couch and getting comfortable. Now I’m wishing I would have paid the extra one hundred dollars and gotten a bigger couch instead of the loveseat.
I start the movie and sit back against the cushion, and I’m so close to him that I can feel the heat from his body. I don’t know how to sit, so I move my legs under me and start to lean against the armrest.
“Come ’ere,” he says with a smile teasing his lips as he pulls me by the arm.
My body moves into his, his arm sliding around me and holding me to him. He smells like leather and musk, and I want to explore him to find out where the smell is coming from. I bite the tip of my tongue hard, trying to find something else to think about other than how hard his body feels against mine.
“Relax,” he whispers, running his hand down my arm. I shiver against him—not from cold, but from the way it feels when he touches me. “You warm enough?”
“Yeah,” I whisper, taking another breath as my belly goes crazy with butterflies. I feel his chest moving and I think he’s laughing, so I turn my head to look up at him.
“You know, you’re really adorable,” he says when our eyes meet. I scrunch up my face at him. I don’t want to be adorable; I want to be beautiful or sexy, not adorable.
“Relax, sweet Sophie. We’re just watching a movie.” His hand cups my cheek, his thumb sliding over my lower lip as his eyes follow.
My breath catches and I nod. His hand drops and slides around my shoulder, pulling me snug against him. I can’t help but to relax as he slides it gently up and down my arm. We watch the movie in comfortable silence, and at some point, I fall asleep.
I wake to the room being cast in a blue glow. It takes a second to remember where I am and who I’m lying on. I put my hand to my mouth, knowing that I probably just drooled all over his shirt, and when I turn my head to apologize, I see that he’s asleep. His arm tightens around me like he doesn’t want me to move. I watch him closely, taking in every contour of his face and the slight stubble along his jaw. Even in sleep, he looks dangerous, but then I think about how gentle he is with me and I wonder how it’s possible for someone to be so complicatedly beautiful.
When he showed up tonight, I wanted to fall into his arms. He looked hot standing there, wearing a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his tattoos and his black jeans hugging his thighs. Then I saw the flowers. They were such a complete contrast to the way he looks, and I almost laughed when he held them out to me, looking unsure about them.
My fingers twitch; I want to trace the outline of his lips with my fingers. I lift my hand slowly; my finger touching his bottom lip causes him to jerk his head away. My hand freezes then moves on its own accord when he stills. His lip is smooth and warm, and I can still remember how it felt against my own when he kissed me. My finger moves slowly as I watch its trail, mesmerized, captivated… Then I scream when his mouth clamps down around my finger, his teeth biting down, not hard, but enough so that I can’t pull away.