that.” He shoots me a cocky grin, his eyebrows rising.
He turns and walks away.
The fucker.
He walks away.
I want to yell.
I want to stomp my feet.
Mostly, I want to go upstairs and find him.
Naked, aroused, imagining me.
Dragging a hand through my hair, I exhale deeply and formulate a plan.
Then I smile. It might even be an evil grin. The next morning, I leave a note on the chalkboard, and head to work with an even eviler grin on my face.
It’s payback time.
22
Derek
For the record, I’m not one of those guys who’s into chick flicks.
I’m your standard-issue, horror-loving, thrill-seeking guy. I don’t need war flicks or blow-’em-up movies, but I do dig the scary stuff more than anything else.
And way more than kissy-face movies.
When Katie used to make me watch them, I always talked during the kisses. Because the kisses were boring. C’mon. They aren’t real, and they’re hardly sexy. One night during her five hundredth rewatch of You’ve Got Mail, I asked her what we were doing that weekend right as Meg Ryan said, “I wanted it to be you,” and I received the kind of dirty look that men spend a lifetime trying to avoid.
But when I find Perri’s note telling me to get ready for a movie kiss reenactment this evening, I don’t think I’ll be bored.
Now showing: At 9 p.m. tonight, please come to the theater of the living room prepared to reenact a movie kiss. Remember—practice makes perfect.
Yep, I’m not foreseeing boredom. I’ll be wildly aroused. Insanely turned on. And loving the flicks in a whole new way.
At the farmers market, I help Jodie at her booth, though I do manage to stroll past the face-painting one a few times, and I wink at Perri. The guy next to her makes a poodle balloon for a girl, and I half want to sneer at him. For no other reason than I know he’s the one going after her job.
Hers.
That promotion belongs to Perri. She’s fierce and tough and devoted. She works hard after hours. She’s a go-getter. She should get the job.
I return to Jodie’s booth then spend the afternoon with the kiddos, but most of the time, I’m thinking about practice.
That evening, I find Perri on the couch at the appointed time, waiting for me, iPad in hand.
I lift an eyebrow. “You’re not going to force me to watch those movies, are you?”
She rises, and my eyes nearly pop out of my head. She’s wearing . . . a tiny sports bra and shorts so short they’re nearly underwear.
My brain short-circuits, and my body goes haywire.
She’s too sexy for my own good.
She’s curvy in all the right places and trim in all the other ones. Toned and tight, with tits I need in my mouth.
“I’m not going to force you to do anything.” Her voice is smoky.
I clear my throat, trying to wrestle some control over the situation, but I’m pretty sure I have none as she walks toward me, impossibly sexy and with just enough gloss on her pouty lips to make me want to kiss it all off.
She leans against the arm of the couch, crosses those toned legs, and tells me to join her. I move next to her, my skin sizzling at how damn close we are and how much closer I want to be. She swipes her finger on the screen and taps on a clip of the best movie kisses of all time.
“We can try reenacting Gone with the Wind, Ten Things I Hate About You, and even Spiderman, which would be tough to pull off but could totally win us the contest on account of how hard it is to do an upside-down kiss in the rain. Or we could do Dirty Dancing, when Baby crawls across the floor to Johnny.”
“Sure,” I say, my voice gravelly because I don’t care which one we do. I want them all. I want her.
She shows me the reel, and it’s a blur because I’m thinking of her body and the way she smells and how she looks. Soon enough, she shuts the cover of the iPad and tells me to sit on the floor like Swayze did in Dirty Dancing. She turns around, gives me the naughtiest look over her shoulder, then walks a few feet away. She swivels back, drops down to her knees, and proceeds to crawl to me.
Across the floor.
This is the best roomie situation ever. She’s the perfect housemate. Yeah, come sit on my face. Come ride me.
She