He reaches out as Eminem spins his melodic rap, taking my hand and spinning me in a circle this time, wrapping his arm around my waist and turning me around the kitchen as Sadie giggles and screams in joy, bouncing in her seat.
When Rihanna starts singing again, Zay puts his lips against my ear and whispers the lyrics with his warm breath tickling my throat. I swear, I can still feel his hands there, pressing gently against the sides of my neck and face. Chills skitter through me as the song peters off and I take a step back, thighs bumping into the small round table that sits in the center of the kitchen.
When a silly pop song starts pinging in the room, I curl my fingers around the wood and watch Zayden as he whisks a bowl of cereal from the counter and puts it in front of Sadie, still doing a stupid little jig that's really not all that stupid in that outfit with those tattoos.
Hmm.
His hair is spiked up on the one side, the stars freshly shaved back into place. With the slight layer of stubble around his soft mouth, the piercings on his lips and nose, his eyebrow … I'm deep in lust before I can stop myself from feeling that way.
“Look at that,” he says as Sadie picks up the puffy bits of cereal with clumsy hands and shoves them in her mouth. “She's got this all figured out.”
“Glad to see you're enjoying yourself,” I say as I force myself to stand up straight and shove some hair back from my face. “For somebody's who's barely taken care of a child in his life, you're kind of good at it.”
Those white teeth flash at me in a grin.
“Right? Maybe I should quit piercing and become a full-time nanny? How do you like them apples? Because they taste nice and juicy to me.” Zay slaps his hands together and even though I have no clue what he's talking about, I smile anyway. But then he looks over at me, really looks at me and I start thinking about the feel of his hands gripping my ass, the spicy scent of sweat, the heat of his breath against my skin as he came. “You know what else looks nice and juicy right now?”
“That better not be a reference to me,” I say as Zay smiles and I point at the baby. “There's a kid in here.”
“So?” Zay looks down at Sadie. “Don't you think Brooke looks smoking hot today?” Sadie gurgles and pats the cereal in her high chair tray. Zayden looks back up at me. “She agrees, so if she agrees and I agree, then it's pretty much an unarguable point.”
“I haven't forgotten about that whole claim line you laid on me this morning. In fact, the more I think about, the more it annoys me. Has anyone ever told you that? That you're annoying?”
“All of the fucking time.”
Zay pulls a kitchen chair out and gestures for me to sit in it.
“The kids are starting to bitch about the sandwiches, so I've decided to try my hand at cooking tonight. First time since I took home ec in high school, so this should be interesting.”
“You took home ec?” I repeat as I reluctantly sit in the chair and watch as Zayden opens the fridge. There's more food in there than there was this morning. Looks like somebody went shopping. “Why?”
“To hit on girls, of course,” Zay says as he starts tossing ingredients onto the counter. “Classic move that every teenage guy knows.” I watch as he lays out a tray of chicken breasts and a stick of butter, moving over to the cabinet for some instant rice, three cans of soup and some salt and pepper that I know I didn't buy. “Alright, here goes nothing.” He whips his phone out of his back pocket and slicks his thumb across the screen.
“What are you making?” I ask, unable to keep sitting there and staring at his ass. It looks far too sexy in those tight pants of his, the straps of his shoes twisting up to his knees. I know this sounds weird, but how often do you see guys dress up like this? With a studded belt and some bracelets on one arm, silver piercings lining his ears, hair all clean and styled into place. When I get close to Zay, I get that blackberry/cinnamon smell again and it calms my racing pulse.
“Some kind of casserole thing. The recipe says it's easy as fuck. Basically, I mix all this crap together and toss it into the oven. Bam. Done.” Zay pauses as I come up beside him and looks down at me, his eyes smiling along with his mouth. His expressions just take over him completely, from head to toe. It's kind of refreshing, the way he doesn't hold back like that. My parents and my sister were always trying to hide their emotions, chug along as if everything were A-OK. I don't want to be like them. “Want to help?”
“Sure,” I say, even though I probably know less about cooking than Zayden does. I didn't even take home ec in school; it was all STEM classes all the time. Zayden hands me a stick of butter and a knife.