I turned my eyes to the mattress, muttering, “Now you’re being a dick.”
He shoved his face in my neck and murmured, “You like my dick.”
Yeah, I did.
Though I wasn’t giving him that.
“Now you’re being an ass.”
He nipped my ear.
I didn’t quite fight back the shiver that caused, and I definitely didn’t fight back the irritation it caused when I felt him smile against the side of my neck before he challenged, “You wanna try to take my ass, we’ll have the bed wrestling match of the millennium part two, which, by the way, sweetheart, you’ll totally lose that too, which means I get to slide up your ass.”
I shivered again.
Hix chuckled again before he slid the tip of his tongue down my neck.
I moved my hands to press against his chest, and I’ll admit (only to myself), I did it feebly and not only because I didn’t have the strength to put more oomph behind it, but because he smelled good just being Hix in the morning, but also being Hix after sex in the morning. Not to mention he felt good and he was all warm and strong and goddamned Hix.
“I like this,” he whispered into my skin.
“Yes. You’re making it very clear you like winning.”
He pulled his face out of my neck to look at me and said, “Yeah, baby. I like that. I like the kind of trophy I got to claim winning. But I also like that you’re a really shitty loser.”
“I’m not a shitty loser,” I retorted.
“You’re totally pouting.”
I felt my mouth form into a (deeper) pout. “I’m not pouting.”
“Totally are.”
“Hix—”
He cut me off by going in for a hard press of his lips against mine and then he pulled back.
And after that, with no warning, he changed my entire world.
“You’re gorgeous. You’re funny. You’re loving and kind and hardworking. You like to take care of me and I like that you do. You listen. You give honestly. You make great breakfasts. You’re fantastic with my kids. We’re combustible in bed. I love making love to you. I love fucking you. But you’re a shit loser and that’s awesome because I was beginning to get a complex thinking I’d found the perfect woman and I’d never live up to that.”
My insides had seized but he just gave me a big smile and kept talking.
“Good to know you got at least one flaw.” His big smile got huge as he finished, “Two, seein’ as you suck at wrestling.”
“You think I’m perfect?” I whispered.
“Thought,” he corrected. “You suck at wrestling, remember?”
I stared at him and the beautiful, teasing light in his pool-blue eyes shimmered away and became a tender, attentive light.
“Greta? Sweetheart?” he called.
“She can’t have you,” I blurted.
The tender, attentive light flickered out as his brows drew together and a perplexed look took over.
“What?”
“She can’t have you,” I repeated. It was stronger this time and included me scratching my nails through the hair at his pecs like I could latch on to him through the sinews in his flesh.
He leaned into me and I bore more of his weight as he brought his face closer to mine.
I knew he got me when he said, “Baby, you don’t have anything to worry about.”
“Okay,” I stated curtly, fighting trembling for another reason as emotion started to take control of me. “But if she tries, if she makes a play, I’ll fight her and I’ll keep fighting and I won’t let her win.” When I noticed the intensity of his stare, I tried to take the intensity that was just plain me down about a dozen notches. “Like I just let you do.”
He brought his face even closer before he declared, “You didn’t let me win.”
I opened my mouth.
“Shut it, Greta.”
I shut my mouth and then it was me staring at him.
Because he was looking at me like no one had ever looked at me.
“You’re not gonna have to fight anything,” he proclaimed.
“If she—”
“Greta, sweetheart, quiet.”
I went quiet.
Hix didn’t.
“It’s you. It was you from the first time you sat your ass across from me at that table at the Dew and you know it. I knew it. It freaked me and I bailed, that’s how strong your pull was. All the shit I jacked up between us was because I couldn’t deal. I couldn’t adjust that fast to being given a shot at something so fucking beautiful when my life had turned to such shit. I couldn’t believe in it. I wouldn’t let myself believe. But in the end I didn’t have to do dick because you turned out to be just as beautiful as you are and I had no choice but to let you make me believe.”
Holy hell.
My bottom lip started quivering.
Holy hell.
“Ohmigod, you’re gonna make me start crying.”
His gaze grew soft on me. “You can’t start crying, gum drop. You gotta get your ass up, showered and in my Bronc so we can go get your brother, some donuts, wake my boy and commence Junk Sunday.”
Junk Sunday.
With Andy and Shaw.
And Hix.
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered.
That didn’t get me a soft look.
His face went harsh as his lips bit out, “Jesus, fuck.”
Oh no.
Shit, no.
“Okay, I . . . okay, I get it. Too soon. It’s way too—” I started to backtrack but was cut off when Hix totally leaned into me, giving me all his weight at the same time running a hand down the inside of my thigh that had been at his hip, pushing it open so his hips fell through when he got me on my back.
“Shut up,” he growled while moving into me. “After you gave me that, I gotta fuck you again, do it quick, find a way to make you come again after I just got two hard ones outta you and do that in time that we don’t make your brother worry or delay Junk Sunday and make my boy ticked.”
His face disappeared in my neck as his hand delved between my legs, I gasped, but I also moved my hands to catch his head on either side and pull it up.
“Hixon—” I tried to start again but that was as far as I got.
“Yes,” he clipped confusingly.
And then, joyously, he kept speaking.
“It started for me the second your eyes moved through that room and you looked right at me and didn’t stop lookin’ at me while you sang ‘At Last.’ You were singing those words to me but I was feelin’ those words about you, Greta. So yes. Fuck yes. Get that look off your face, baby, because it’s not too soon. It’s where we are. So it’s just right.”
I stared up at him.
He stared down at me.
My eyes started to get wet.
He saw it because he again bit out, “Jesus, fuck.”
And in the worst timing in history, his cell on the nightstand rang.
Both our eyes went to it and he repeated an even more terse, “Jesus, fuck,” before he looked again to me and said, “My job, I gotta—”
“Get it, honey,” I whispered.
He bent to touch his mouth swiftly to mine, but when he reached to the phone, he pulled me with him so we were diagonal on the bed with me still mostly under him when he caught sight of the screen.
My body strung tight as I watched his face turn to stone.
I forced my gaze to his phone and saw the back of it, his thumb moving on the front and he put it to his ear.