She popped the chip in her mouth, shaking her head.
“I know aliens are real. I mean, it would be ridiculous for there to be so many universes and not a single other planet has intelligent life on it. But whether we will ever communicate with them? I don’t know. But this?” She gestured to the screen. “We have aliens right here. We have a whole other galaxy we can’t even fully explore because we can’t dive that deep. How wild is that?”
I smirked, arching a brow at her as she continued staring at the screen wide-eyed and chomping on the dusty orange chips.
She was so strange, and intelligent, and curious, and full of wonder. She was like a child and a grown ass woman somehow wrapped up in one.
Giana must have sensed me looking at her, because she glanced my way before sucking the crumbs off her fingertips and asking, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I cracked my neck, looking back at the screen. “Not really.” I paused. “But… thank you. For this,” I added with a nod toward the TV. “It helped.”
She smiled, a little shimmy of her shoulders telling me she was proud of that. “Good.”
The light from the television battled with the shadows of her room, casting her figure in a soft blue light. I followed the length of it down to her cleavage, the sliver of skin showing above her sweatpants, all the way down to her feet and back up again. I couldn’t explain it, but there was something so comfortable about her in that moment, something that begged to be held.
That beast inside me reared its ugly head, rattling against the cage and demanding my attention. And I didn’t know if it was for her or for my own selfish desire that I did what I did next.
“So…” I cleared my throat. “Now that you’ve made me feel better…” I angled myself toward her, propping my chin on the heel of my hand. “Wanna practice?”
Giana frowned. “Practice?” she echoed around a bite of a pretzel dipped in beer cheese.
When she looked at me, I just cocked a brow, hoping the salacious smile spreading on my lips would be answer enough.
Her lips parted, eyes popping open wide before she gulped down the bite in her mouth. “Oh, my God. Practice! Yes!”
In a feat of agility and speed, she dropped what was left of the pretzel in her hand and cleared the plates and snacks from the bed between us. She hastily shuffled them into the kitchen before all but skipping back to the bed and jumping into it, landing on her knees and clapping like a little kid.
“Okay. What do we do?”
I smirked, sitting up to join her, but as soon as I did, she gasped and leapt out of the bed.
“Wait!” she exclaimed, and then disappeared into the bathroom. I heard the faucet running and a quick two minutes later she was back. “Sorry. Cheeto breath,” she explained.
I barked out a laugh at that. “I’m not worried about your breath. And besides, I’ve been eating the same shit. Do you want me to go brush my teeth?”
“No. Cheeto breath wouldn’t make you disgusting the way it would on me. You’d somehow find a way to make it sexy.”
I licked my bottom lip, amused, and Giana rolled her eyes before smacking my chest playfully.
“Come on. Focus. Tell me what to do.”
She carefully removed her glasses next, setting them aside before she was tuned back into me. And the way she was perched there, propped up on her knees, her chest swelling and falling, eyes eager… it was the sweetest, most intoxicating sight. She watched me like I had all the answers, like I was her lifeline.
Like she trusted me with everything that she was.
Swallowing, I ignored every voice inside me that warned against what I was about to do, and I moved into her, framing her body with my fists against the mattress as she leaned against the headboard.
“Lie down,” I commanded.
A flash of desire pooled in her eyes as she obeyed.
Giana
I was consumed.
By the darkness of my room, the incessant pounding of my heart, the towering mass of Clay’s body as he lowered me down into my sheets. His rough voice reverberated in my ears, the command low but firm.
“Lie down.”
I submitted, and as my back came flush against the mattress, Clay slid on top of me, nestling his thick frame between my thighs. The heat of it sent a chill down my arms, one Clay smiled at before he smoothed his knuckles along my chin.
“Relax,” he said. “We’re not going all the way tonight.”
I frowned, sagging into the sheets as Clay chuckled and tilted my chin. I was ready to protest, to point out the fact that Shawn had my freaking number now and I could be alone with him at any moment, completely unprepared. But before I could argue, Clay spoke again.
“Don’t look so sad, Kitten,” he teased, pressing a kiss light as air to my jaw. “There are many things that come before that, and trust me when I say you won’t want to skip them.”
An embarrassed smile found my lips before he kissed them, and I sucked in a breath, looping my arms around his neck and asking for more. It felt natural now that we’d done it a few times, almost… comforting.
But he broke away all too soon.
“One step at a time, yeah?” he whispered, waiting until I nodded before he descended on me once more.
And with a stroke of his hand along the side of my face, his fingers weaving into the hair at the nape of my neck and holding me still as he kissed me again, I surrendered.
A long, heady breath left me, and I opened my mouth to let Clay slide his tongue inside. Just like at the party, a jolt of electricity shot straight between my legs, something pulsing there like a heartbeat.
I whimpered at the feel of it, and he pulled back from the kiss enough to hear the full sound from my lips.
“Why does that feel so good?” I breathed, my eyes still closed as Clay’s tongue lashed out against mine again.
“Do you want the science of it, or the layman’s terms?”
I bit my lip against a smile as he kissed down my neck, and his hips rolled between mine, striking me with that hot spark of electricity again.
“Both.”
A low rumble of a laugh vibrated at my throat.
“When we kiss, your brain lets off a cocktail of chemicals,” he whispered, crawling his kisses back up until he claimed my mouth. “But it’s not really about them. It’s about what they’re telling you.”
“Which is?”
He nosed my chin, nipping at my neck. “You tell me.”
I let out a breath of a laugh, wriggling beneath him as he sucked the skin at my neck, one hand steadying him while the other trailed down the length of my arm. His fingertips were so gentle, fluid — like ice skaters performing in front of a crowd. They ran all the way down to where I fisted his shirt before they skated back up.
And then he pulled back.
“What?” I breathed, eyes hooded.
“Tell me,” he said again.
I flushed. “I can’t… I don’t know…”
Clay’s eyes stayed locked on mine, hand framing my neck once more. But this time, his thumb came to rest on my lower lip, just like it had that night at the club when we went to watch Shawn. His eyes fell to where his thumb rested, and he smoothed the pad of it over my slick lip before dragging it down, pulling my lip along with it.