Give me a few minutes. I’ll come with you.”
“Sure, sure.”
Travis applied toothpaste to the brush, ran it under the water, and stuck it in his mouth. “You’re doing that thing again where you don’t touch me. Which is funnier than usual seeing as how we spent the whole night plastered together.”
“Did we?”
“Yeah.” He scrubbed his teeth and spat. Like a damn baseball player. “Is that why you’re acting weird? Because I forgot to leave?”
“Am I acting weird?”
He gave her a look of pure male exasperation. “You’ve got until I finish brushing my teeth to stop freaking out on me. Otherwise . . .” Dramatic pause. “We’re going down to tickle town.”
A tingle of alarm ran down her spine. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.” Brush, brush. “Bottoms of the feet, right?”
“We’re adults now.” Trying to be inconspicuous, she sidestepped toward the bathroom door. “You can’t use a weakness against me you learned when I was a child. That’s unethical.”
He rinsed and spit, nestling his toothbrush alongside hers in the cabinet. Thunk-thunk-thunk went her heart, waiting for him to respond. “I gave my best friend’s sister her first time on the couch last night. Didn’t go easy on her, either.” His attention dropped to the apex of her thighs, his jaw flexing. “Trust me, I didn’t think of ethics once.”
“Good,” she said in a shaky whisper. “I’m more than the youngest Castle sibling.”
“You’re telling me.”
Oh God. Her knees wanted to collapse. “All of this is irrelevant, because I’m not freaking out anymore. No need for tickling.”
He sauntered toward her like a rangy-hipped cowboy. With a chub. “Why did you throw the toothbrush away?”
Her laughter was hysterical. “I think the court will agree that was an accident.”
Travis stopped and crossed his arms. His big, buff arms with shadowed cuts and mouthwatering valleys. Boy, this bathroom had seriously great lighting. “You still haven’t touched me. I’m starting to get annoyed.”
“You can be aroused and annoyed at the same time?” She shifted on the balls of her feet, preparing to run. “There’s one for the résumé, right?”
Her words were still hanging in the air when Travis lunged and threw her over his shoulder. Disoriented, she somehow managed to deduce where they were going—the bed—and she yelped on the way down, landing on her back. “Don’t do it!”
“You had your chance.” Travis shook his head, planting a hand on her chest and easily holding her down while he pried off a running shoe. “I didn’t want to visit tickle town, but you left me no choice.”
“Stop calling it that.” Georgie half laughed, half squealed, attempting and failing to twist onto her belly. “Oh my God. A naked man is tickling me by force. I never want to hear clowns are scary again.”
She peeked up to find his fingers poised above the arch of her right foot. “This hurts me more than it hurts you.”
“Travis, please.”
The gorgeous jerk had the nerve to wink. “There’s that word I love so much again.”
Her skin was on high alert, waiting for the dreaded sensation. “The anticipation is the worst part,” she wailed. “Just do it or don’t.”
“There’s only one escape.”
Hope caused her to jackknife, but Travis pushed her back down. “What is it?”
“I want a proper good morning from you, and I’m not even sure what one looks like. Just know I wanted you lying there when I opened my eyes.” His mouth was in a smirk, but his eyes were deadly serious. Dark. Her thighs turned watery in response. “I want your hands all over me. Your mouth on mine. And next time you get out of bed without giving me both, I’m going to find you, pull your pants down, and backhand that little tush you had tucked up in my lap all night. We clear?”
Georgie’s pulse thundered in her ears, her intimate muscles searching for their counterpart, wanting to clamp down. Wanting friction. “Yes.”
Travis watched her from under hooded lids for another second, then freed her foot. He sunk back on the bed in a kneeling position and waited while Georgie scrambled up. Intuition told her a single hesitation would earn her a one-way ticket onto her back again, so she didn’t wait. She climbed him. She locked her thighs around Travis’s waist and ran her palms up his shoulders, stopping when they were framing his face. And they fell into a groaning kiss, his hard flesh lifting and prodding the seam of her yoga pants. His hands slipped beneath her shirt, gripping her waist on each side, calling