Page 60 of Grasp The Moment

I pity the people who have only ever seen the serious man, the father, and Division I athlete versions of him, because this Derek right here issomething.

“Is there something on my face, or am I just that good looking to you?” He grins.

Rolling my eyes, I swat at his hand on my foot. “Shut up…”

Derek chuckles as my play hits land on his abs. When I get closer to his neck in an attempt to tickle him, he grabs my hand.

“Tell me how you really feel. What’s been going on in that brain of yours, Georgia Adams?”

The eye contact, the undivided attention, it all has my stomach feeling something it’s never felt before, and before I can stop myself, I open my mouth.

“I feel like I’m fucking everything up because it’s never taken me this long to doanything. I can sew a dress in my sleep. Creating new designs happens instantly. But this? It’s taken me ages to do something so simple as sketching asuit. No wonder ASTERI didn’t pick me…” I say with a sigh as Derek slides in a bit closer, my thighs now across his lap as his hand moves to my hair.

We sit in silence with him massaging my scalp and me thinking with my head on his shoulder, but it doesn’t take long for him to speak up.

“How can I help?”

I lift my head from his shoulder and turn to face him.

Those four words.

I’ve never known that four words could mean so much to me until he spoke them aloud.

“I just need to relieve myself of this stress…” I trail off as my eyes track to his lips. The memory of us in the fabric store three days ago flashes in my mind as Derek gives me a playful smirk.

Tilting my chin up, he leans in a smidge closer. “I know the perfect way for you to relieve some stress.”

My body awakens at the deep timber of his voice and the dirty connotation hidden in it.

“I’m open to all of them…”

He grins, his eyes trailing from my eyes to my lips, then back up. He licks his lips before biting the bottom one. I gulp, my body awakening as his glasses slip down the bridge of his long nose a bit.

“Like what you see?” I taunt, using his words against him as he lets out a dark chuckle.

Derek pulls my body onto his lap in an instant and kisses the tips of his fingers, “Love it. Perfection.”

A giggle falls from my lips as one of his waves falls onto his forehead, and without thought, I smooth it back with the rest of his hair. I suck in a breath, my body tingling, as his eyes close from my touch.

When he opens his eyes back up, they’re darker than before.

“I never got to finishmassaging you.”

“Oh! You can finish?—”

Before the sentence can hit the air, I’m being hoisted up and carried to the bedroom. I wrap my arms around Derek’s neck, giggling as he plops me down on the bed, flipping me in an instant.

He’s quiet and stealthy as he lifts my shirt lightly, exposing the bare, braless skin of my back. I suck in a breath of air as a liquid is dripped on my back, followed by the feel of his cold and callused hands.

A moan escapes my lips when Derek's hands move to my lower back, circling and massaging the tender skin.

“Fuck…” I curse lowly when he reaches a spot at the top of my back near my shoulder blade before slicing a line down my back.

Derek is quiet as he works, and it’s so quiet that a part of me forgets it’s him massaging me instead of one of those handheld machines. I’m slowly falling asleep, allowing the feel of his hands to work me over when he clears his throat.

“Georgia?” he says my name cautiously, moving back down to my lower back, slowly moving his hands to my butt as I shift.

“Mhm?”