Page 105 of Cross Checked
Without thinking, I reached over and rested my hand on top of hers where it sat between us on the center console.
Her fingers twitched slightly beneath mine.
That hit differently now too.
Yesterday, touching her hand would have been loaded. Today, after last night, after this morning, after knowing exactly what her body did when she stopped fighting me, every point of contact felt like a reminder and a promise. Her skin under mine. Her breath catching. The memory of her hands fisting in my hair.
I kept my hand still because I was disciplined.
Not calm, not by a long shot.
Disciplined.
“I can feel this making you sad,” I said quietly. “Don’t let it.”
Her eyes lifted to mine. “How does it not make you sad?”
I shrugged lightly, thumb brushing once against the back of her hand. “Because I never had it.” I squeezed her hand gently. “You can’t really miss something you’ve never experienced.”
The look on her face after that nearly wrecked me.
Holy shit, I was becoming addicted to that look.
To all of them, actually.
The soft one. The mouthy one. The breathless one. The one she got right before she lied to herself and called whatever this was benefits because feelings were too dangerous to name.
I glanced over at her briefly and smiled a little, needing to shift the weight before I did something inconvenient like tell her that the thing she was trying so hard to keep casual already felt like a problem under my skin. “You know when I talk about my family like this, it’s off the record, right?”
I hated how vulnerable my voice sounded saying it. Hated the way it slipped out before I could make it sound less like it mattered. But Pip just squeezed my hand softly in return.
“I would never do that to you,” she said quietly. “That goes without saying.”
Relief hit me harder than it probably should have.
“I’m glad you know the difference between when I’m talking to you and when I’m talking to your project.”
She smiled softly at that. “I think I’m getting better at figuring it out.”
“Good.”
Because I needed her to know the difference.
I needed her to understand that the parts of me I gave her were not for the report. They weren’t for some massive human-interest project, no matter how much she tried to make school the safe container for whatever was happening between us. When I talked to her about my family, my head, the way I moved through the world, I wasn’t feeding her material.
I was letting her in.
And if she wanted to pretend that wasn’t intimacy because my mouth had been between her thighs an hour ago and she needed everything between us to stay safely physical, fine. Let her pretend.
I could be patient when I had a target.
I looked back toward the road ahead of us before speaking again. “I think that’s why I’m excited for today in a way that probably says concerning things about me.”
Pip turned slightly toward me. “The barbecue?”
“Yeah.” I smiled faintly. “The whole neighborhood thing is still insane to me. Your brothers. Your dad. Family friends wandering in and out of each other’s houses like everyone just collectively agreed doors are optional.” I shook my head once. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”
The look she gave me nearly stole the breath from my lungs. Soft. Warm. Almost unbearably tender. Like she wanted to hand me something fragile.
