I rolled my eyes, remembering that he’d actually had lunch delivered to my office that day. “I don’t make it a habit,” I retorted.
“Nor will you be from here on out.” He bent low, beckoning a kiss.
I turned my head, as if denying him a kiss, until he began tickling my ribcage.
“Stop it!” I yelped, giggling. “Stop!”
“Lips, precious,” he ordered.
“No!” I challenged, trying to break free of his hold but doing a piss poor job of it due to my incessant giggling.
“Lips,” he growled.
“O-okay,” I answered, shivering. I turned my face to meet his insistent lips. The moan that fell from my mouth was unstoppable. Too soon, he pulled back, ending the kiss.
“You need to eat.”
“Let’s eat in the living room,” I told him, grabbing the meal of split lentils with some type of garlic and onion sauce and a side of collard greens. Tyler had ordered Ethiopian for the second time that week. I’m certain that had to do with the fact that I’d practically been drooling over our previous meal from the same restaurant.
“You don’t mind eating in the living room?” he questioned, standing over the couch with his food in his hand.
“No.” I shrugged. “Don’t tell me you’ve never eaten on the couch before.” I patted the dark grey cushion of the couch for him to sit.
“Not growing up,” he began, sitting next to me, his thigh brushing up against mine. “At least, not while my mother was around. She hated for us to eat in the living room, or anywhere near her furniture.”
“So naturally, when she wasn’t looking, you did,” I stated as I took a forkful of collard greens.
“Naturally,” he responded, winking at me.
My belly flip flopped.
“She’s not a snob. My mother. She just knew we were careless and taught us to eat in the dining area. She once found two-week-old tuna in my brother Carter’s room so she banned us from eating in our bedrooms.”
“Another rule I’m sure you broke.”
Tyler chuckled. “Try this.” He held out a piece of the injera with cheese on it.
Instinctively, I opened my mouth to allow him to serve me the food. I closed my eyes and ran my tongue along the tip of his pointer finger as he slowly pulled it free from my mouth. A growling sound made deep in his throat is what caused me to open my eyes to see him staring at me hard.
I chewed slowly and licked my lips lustfully.
“After dinner,” he warned.
“You’re such a tease,” I sighed. I slipped off the couch and crawled along the vibrant pink and purple area rug to move in between Tyler’s legs. He dipped his head, planting a kiss in the spot where my shoulder and neck meet, eliciting another shiver.
We ate and talked about his day of practice. My stomach twisted when he reminded me the following day he would be on the road again for another away game. But I wouldn’t whine about his job no matter how much I wanted him to stay here with me until we both grew sick of one another. If that were to ever happen. The way I was starting to feel, it never would.
“What’re you thinking about?” His deep voice broke through my thoughts. He trailed a long finger back and forth over the line of my shoulder and collarbone.
I pushed out a breath and tilted my head back so it rested against his strong thigh. “How come you don’t have any tattoos?”
He angled his head, surprised but not thrown by my question.
“It just seems odd. Most athletes I know have lots of tattoos. It’s practically a rite of passage. But you have none. And trust me, I have looked over every inch of your body, more than once, and you don’t have any. Why?”
“Every inch?”
“Ty,” I laughed, nudging his knee with my head.
