Shoving another handful of deliciousness into my mouth, rogue pieces slipped through my fingers or didn’t quite make it between my parted lips and tumbled to my lap, adding to the small pile of discards. Needing both hands to keep fighting, Iwiped my palm on a dishcloth and gripped my controller, ready to give it all I had in this ultimate battle.
Even as I bobbed and weaved, tossing spells and fireballs at my enemy, all those years of being smothered kept running on a loop in my mind. “Never again,” I bit out. “Never again will someone tell me what to do, who to be, what to wear. Never again.”
“That’s an excellent motto. Stitch that on a pillow,” said a deep voice directly behind me.
I froze, as if my character’s wand was real and had directed an immobilization spell right at my chest. Nothing functioned the way it should, not my lungs, not my brain; everything had suddenly gone offline.
Damnit. What good was the self-defense training with Oliver if I froze up when surprised?
My vision blurred with the need to blink, but I couldn’t even do that. The air shifted as the person behind me moved around the couch and stepped into my line of sight.
The moment recognition weaved its way through my sluggish brain, all the tension drained out of me. With a grunt, I slumped against the couch, my energy zapped from those few intense moments. Hand over my pounding heart, I narrowed my eyes at the smiling hottie blocking the TV, where I was almost positive I was getting my ass kicked based on the sounds vibrating through the surround-sound speakers I installed last week. It made the gaming experience that much better when you could feel the sounds in the air.
“West O’Donnell, you fucking asshole,” I griped. Grabbing a throw pillow, I launched it at his head, which he dodged easily.
He looked at the pillow on the ground and then back at me like I’d just offended him somehow. “What did I say?” he asked innocently.
My breath caught for a second. He was just that good-looking in a sweet, sexy way with his glasses and shy smile. Loose, worn jeans hung on his hips but were snug around his thick thighs—making it very clear that even with his injury, he was keeping up with leg day—and pooled into a pair of untied work boots. Large work boots. It made me wonder if the saying was true about big feet meaning a big?—
“Earth to Juno,” he laughed, waving his good hand in front of my face.
I blinked, only now realizing I was in fact staring at his crotch.
Fuck a walrus.
“What the hell, West?” I snapped, hoping he didn’t catch me mentally measuring the size of his dick based on his boot size and…. My focus zeroed in on his good hand.Big hands too. Thick fingers….I shook my head hard. What the hell was going on with me today? Maybe my assortment of toys and I had not spent enough quality time together lately because, holy fuck, I was horny. “You scared the shit out of me, sneaking up like that. Did you forget to knock?”
That mischievous smirk that showed a sexy dimple disappeared, replaced with a serious expression. The sudden shift in his mood had the previous heat filling my veins turning to ice.
“I scared you, and you just sat on the couch, frozen in place?” He crossed both thick arms over his muscular chest and shot me a disapproving look.
I picked a piece of popcorn off my lap and tossed it into my mouth, giving me a second to come up with a decent answer that wouldn’t make him even more frustrated with me. “Um, yeah. I was deep in battle here, and I wasn’t expecting someone to just barge into my home unannounced.”
Shitty excuse, but that was the best I could come up with to defend my inaction while distracted by him.
His head tilted to the side with a quizzical expression. “Um, no one ever expects to be attacked.”
I arched an eyebrow at him, stifling a chuckle. “But you’re not attacking me, right?” Fuck, why did I phrase that as a question? And did I want him to say yes or no? The good kind of attacking, obviously. Not the hurtful… well, sometimes that was the good kind too. Just not the “I want to leave you dead” kind of attacking.
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had.
“I know you’re working with Oliver on self-defense, but you need reactive help too.”
“I do?”
He nodded with a calculating expression.
Waving a hand in the air, I gestured to his face. “I don’t like that look, whatever it is.”
“You and me.”
“Go on,” I blurted before slapping a hand over my mouth. His lips curled upward in a slow smile. “I mean… fuck, what were you saying about you and me?”
“I’ll help train you on your reaction time, faster reflexes for when you’re surprised.”
I wiggled my fingers in the air. “Yay,” I mocked, despite loving the idea and knowing it would be helpful.
The way his grin fell made me feel like an asshole.
