“Well, I think I’m a little too heavy to be walking on your back,” she says as if I should already know this. “And because it’s weird?” It was more a statement than a question, but something else she thinks I should already know, apparently.
God, she’s so fucking cute.
I roll my eyes. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who wears a size zero and thinks she’s fat.”
“No! I’m not one of those,” she defends. “I just don’t want to hurt you!”
I laugh without restraint.
“OK, well, you’re not going to hurt me. I can promise you that.” I get up from the couch—with pretend difficulty—and step around Sienna and the coffee table and then lie on my bare chest on the floor. “Come on. It’ll really help me out a lot.” One side of my face is pressed against the rug as I look up at her at an angle. She stands over me with her flimsy arms crossed—I grow even harder beneath my shorts.
“No, Luke.” She laughs. “I’m not going to do it.”
“Yeah you are,” I say casually and wave my hand at her as if there’s nothing to it. “The only way you can hurt me is if you jump up and down really, really hard. Now, get on.”
“No.”
“Please?”
She shakes her head repeatedly, her smile growing.
I break out the big guns.
“It’s the least you can do for me letting you stay here for free and have my bed.” I grin slightly, which I imagine looks strange with my cheek smashed against the floor.
“No!” She laughs out loud. “I’ll sleep on the couch from now on if that’s the case.”
With me? I want to say—and almost do—but restrain myself.
“No you won’t,” I tell her sharply. “What kind of guy would I be if I made you sleep on the couch while I was all sprawled out on the comfy bed? Now, step on and start walkin’.”
“You’re crazy.”
Absolutely, one hundred percent, no-going-back crazy for you—I admit it.
I scoff. “OK, then if you won’t walk on it, sit down and use your hands instead. You can’t hurt me like that for sure.”
That seems to have shut her up for the moment. I smile up at her, searching her face for the meaning behind her expression, and come to the conclusion that she’s a little embarrassed. That, too, I use to my advantage. Because aside from that whole gentleman thing, I’m an ass sometimes, and I happen to enjoy it.
“It’s either walk on my back,” I taunt her playfully, “or … sit on my ass with your naked thighs straddling my sides and rub with your bare hands, allll ooover, until you get the kinks out of all those sore muscles.”
Her face would be beet-red if she didn’t have a light tan.
I break into a smile, unable to contain it for long.
“All right, fine,” she says and steps onto my back carefully. “But if I hurt you, you better tell me.” I feel the other foot press into my muscles and my body melts as her weight presses against me and pushes me harder against the floor.
I want to keep up the whole screwing-with-her-head thing, making her laugh and blush and smile, but I’m finding that becoming almost impossible to do anymore. I’m intoxicated by the feel of her little warm feet kneading the muscles in my back, her delicate steps trying so hard to be careful; her small form brings out something primal and protective within me, and it takes everything in me not to roll over and grab her in my arms and kiss her breathless.
“Am I doing it right?” she asks, snapping me out of my thoughts.
“Ah, yeah, that feels awesome.” I moan a little in between words, my eyes opening and closing as if a coaxing hand lies across my lids. “Mmmm … yeah, right there … ah, yeah.”
“Stop that!” She chuckles, and I feel her weight shift as she tries to balance herself. “You sound like you’re about to get off.”
Babe, if you only knew …
My laugh is muffled and strained, followed by an oomph! as Sienna’s weight continues to shift unsteadily.
She walks on my back for a few more minutes, losing her balance only a couple of times and causing me to suck in a quick breath and my eyes to bulge. But she could go ahead and hop up and down if she wanted and I’d still want her to stay right where she was.
After a while, when I feel like she’s suffered enough, I let her off the hook.
“Owww!” I brace the palms of my hands against the floor.
Sienna jumps off immediately. “Did I hurt you?”
“Not with your weight,” I say with a grimace, pushing down the grin trying to sneak up on my lips, “but your heels are kind of rough. Felt like sandpaper there for a second.”
A burst of air pushes through her lips.
“Shut up!” She laughs and then I feel her toes prodding me in the ribs. I pretend to be wounded. “My feet are not like sandpaper! Trust me, I spend enough time on them so they should be immaculate.”
I roll over onto my back and grab one of her feet in both my hands before she can snatch it away. Then I pretend to inspect it, turning it this and that way with my fingers collapsed around the top and my thumbs pressing into the bottom, which is actually quite soft. She hops on one foot, trying not to fall over.
“OK, you’re right.” I give in and let go. “Must’ve been something else.” I smile up at her.
Then, unable to hold myself back anymore, I bring her down on top of me so that her bare legs straddle my waist. Fitting my fingers at the back of her neck, I pull her gently toward me, touching my lips to the edges of her mouth, the little hollow below her nose, and finally her lips—I feel her warm, soft body melting into mine. I kiss her softly, winding my fingers in the back of her hair.