“Geez,” she groaned, mildly affronted.
I chuckled. “Come on, Cal. You know I like your bloody inner gore.”
An agitated sigh left her mouth in staccato.
“Why do you really wear it?”
She shook her head and looked at a swirl in the material at her neck.
“It’s stupid.”
“So what if it is?” I asked.
Her arm reached out in order to shove me playfully until my back hit the floor. “Thanks. You’re supposed to tell me that there’s no way it’s stupid.”
I shrugged as I sat up, curling my abs and reaching for the tape for my fingers as I did. “Sorry. But it might be. And that’s okay. You’re allowed to do stuff for stupid reasons every once in a while. I don’t think the fact that I look for the number nine in everything I do is logical or intelligent, but I still do it. Because I can.”
“You look for the number nine in everything?”
“I just said I did,” I confirmed with smile and tilt of my head.
“Do I look like a nine?”
“No.”
“What? Not curved enough for you?” she teased, rolling her neck to the side and trying to connect it with her body.
“No,” I replied. “You don’t look like a nine,” I paused, “because you’re a ten.”
Her eyes dilated both at the corniness of my assertion and the meaning behind it. She knew I said it not to get a reaction, but because I meant it.
Instead of lingering in the moment, she cleared her throat and went back to the original question.
“When I was younger, it was my favorite color. I wore it all the time because that’s what twelve year olds do.” She picked at the tight, short fiber of the foam carpet covering the rods. “But I loved gymnastics then. Looked forward to every day, every split, and each and every event. Last year when I started feeling like I’d lost my way, I don’t know…I guess I thought this might help.”
My head cocked just slightly, wanting so badly to ask her more about her lack of love for the sport and why she kept doing it anyway. But I didn’t want to ruin what I knew was already a powerful admission on her part, so I forced myself to let it go.
Mostly.
“Did it?”
She laughed, the end of her ponytail swaying with the negative shake of her head. “Not even a little bit.”
Her answer made my skin itch, so much so that my mental cortisone nearly wore off, but I fought it, keeping my question innocent rather than probing.
“But you’re still doing it?” I queried after looking from her very purple leotard to her face and back again.
Her shoulders went up to her cute ears and back down. “I bought all new leotards and got rid of my old ones. They’re all purple.”
My laugh started as a low wheeze and turned into a barking cough as I fell back to horizontal on the floor.
She scooted toward me suddenly, covering my body with hers in annoyance.
“Don’t laugh at me!”
“I couldn’t stop if I tried, my little Pea,” I admitted, happy and unable to hide it. There with her, in the gym alone at night with her simple admission floating through the air and mingling with all the leftover stirred up chalk of the day, I couldn’t make myself want to be anywhere else.
She cringed at the nickname, but I found myself liking it. She was tiny in size, and yet, her presence was undeniable just like the pea under a certain princess’ mattress.
The weight of her body settled on top of mine as her hands left the support of the ground and ventured into my hair. Pushing clumps and sweeping individual strands different directions, she played with the mop of it mindlessly for minutes as she did nothing else but stare directly into my eyes.
With bated breath, I did my best not to disturb her, desperate for her to keep it up.
Her nails unintentionally scratched at my scalp, and the motion of her actions tugged at the nerves at each sensitive root. It felt relaxing and personal and contentedly natural.
Just as she’d accused, while she worked, I watched.
The skin of her face was smooth and unflawed, and the lashes of her eyes curled with natural length and luster. She didn’t wear much makeup from what I’d seen, instead sticking to striving for a subtle girl next door mystique.
She failed miserably.
Only because she couldn’t hide the dimension of her irises or change the curve of her smile. Each cheek hooked all the way to her eyes when laughter robbed her face of seriousness, and raw power shone off of every muscular line of her perfectly honed body.
The way she moved when she was in her element only made it better.
“You’re so pretty, Cal,” I whispered, grabbing one of her hips with an open hand and settling the other palm on her warm back. “I don’t think I’ve really told you that, but it’s true. From the very first moment you glared at me, your eyes have been my undoing.”
Speaking of the devils, they narrowed playfully at the use of the word ‘glared’.
Still she said nothing as we lay there with our legs intertwined and touching, and as the silence stretched on, my curiosity started to over-ripen and bruise with worry.
“Callie?” I asked softly, wrapping my palm around the curve of her cheek.
Leaning forward, she touched her lips to mine, speaking with them there in the same way that I often did.
“Make love to me, Nik,” she breathed on one soft exhale.
My eyes squeezed painfully shut before prying themselves open again.
Sweet Christ Almighty.
“Here?”
“Here,” she nodded, resolute. “Right now.”
“Cal—”
“I want to know how it’s supposed to feel,” she interrupted on a silky whisper, touching the very tip of her delicate nose to my large one.
I wasn’t ashamed to admit a full body shiver made quick work of my six foot tall frame.
“God, Cal.”
Pain from consideration splintered in my rational mind and indecision warred in my belly, but one team was fighting with an intensity that the other side had not one chance of matching.
I figured it had a hell of a lot to do with redirection of blood flow.
“I want to go on record as having said this is a bad idea.”
Her eyes made an understated revolution before her lips settled softly atop mine once more. “You’re hereby absolved of responsibility.”
I shook my head in response, knowing I’d go head to head with any challenge whether I’d been the brain behind the idea or not. Especially one where I was able but completely unwilling to say no.
“Unnecessary,” I murmured as I sealed her lips to mine, bringing a hand to the back of her exposed neck and pulling her even closer. “This is one action I find undeniably worth any and all consequences.”
My only concern now was making it good for her. Making her feel comfortable and cared for and taking the super shitty reality of her first time and replacing it with memory much worthier of keeping.
She giggled as I rolled her, trapping her small body under mine and shifting my hardening hips directly into hers.
My hands went straight to her hips, digging and scraping and trying to get under a hem that wasn’t there.
“Of course you would have to be wearing the world’s most impossible garment for achieving skin to skin contact,” I grumbled as I kissed her neck, inhaling the smell of apples and citrus that seemed to seep from her skin. She’d been sweating and working all day, but she smelled as appealing as ever, and I was convinced that was another one of God’s well-thought-out plans.
Not only was olfaction big in sensory memory, it was a scientific aphrodisiac, literally endearing you to people biologically matched to you.
Okay, I didn’t have any actual research on the subject, but I could have sworn I’d seen an article about it at some point.