He smiles, leaving my legs draped across his lap and spreading out the bottom of the blanket.
“It’s the only blanket I have, Cole. Friends share things.”
I grumble, “I am not a football player. Please don’t call me by my last name.”
He smiles and makes that universal sound that means Too bad. “Just treating you like any other friend, Cole.”
I scoff and jam my elbow under my head in an attempt to get comfortable, refusing to let myself glance at Carson even though I swear I feel him watching me. I’m also seriously undone by the feel of his muscled legs beneath my shins. Just when I’ve got myself propped up the way I like it, my phone buzzes on the coffee table.
I reach forward to grab it.
It’s from Carson.
You’ve got some janked-up feet, Cole.
Chapter 14
Carson
Her reaction is about what I expected, though a little more violent. But at least it gets her to loosen up.
“You are such a jerk!”
One long foot nails me right in the stomach, and I catch her by the ankles before she hits me in a more unforgiving, more sensitive place.
“Hey! I’m just speaking the truth. That’s one of our deals, right?”
“I don’t want to hear those kind of truths! If you have a problem with my feet, then you should find a friend who isn’t a dancer.”
She tries to tug her ankles out of my grasp, but I jerk them back, sliding her a few inches closer to me on the couch.
“I didn’t say I didn’t like them, Cole. They have character.”
She turns her face down into the couch cushion and lets out a groan. I know it’s a groan of agitation, but that doesn’t stop my body from reacting to the sound.
She lays her cheek against the cushion and says, “Character is just a nice way of saying they’re ugly.”
Her attempts to kick herself free have left the blanket up around her knees, so I slide my hands down from her ankle and grasp the foot closest to me.
“What are you—”
The breathy moan she releases when I push my thumb along the sole of her foot just about undoes me.
“Oh God, Carson.”
Think nice, clean, friendly thoughts, Carson.
Yeah. That’s about as effective as ordering myself to know Spanish. In other words . . . impossible.
“You sit there and watch Disney while I prove I have no problem with your feet.”
They do look kind of tortured, like my hands when I go too long without lifting weights and then pick it up again. She has numerous calluses and a blister on the side of her big toe. And the joint below that toe looks like it wears a permanent red mark. I avoid it as I rub her feet, worried it’s a bruise and will be painful. I alternate between digging at the muscles with my thumb and running my palms over them softly.
Dallas is uncharacteristically still and silent. I could almost believe she’s asleep, except for the way her fingers are curled around the edge of the couch cushion in a death grip.
I switch to the other foot for a little while, relaxing back into the couch and watching the movie with lazy interest.
I don’t let go of her feet, but as my hands grow tired, I switch from a focused massage to unhurried caresses. When we get to the balcony scene, I tickle the foot I’m holding, and she digs her other foot into my thigh in warning.
Chuckling, I move my attention off her feet to her calves, and she flinches and breaks her silence with a gasp.
“That hurt?” I ask, circling my hands around her shins, and gentling the push of my thumbs.
It’s several long moments before she answers, but when she does, I know it’s my honesty rule that made her hesitate.
“No. It doesn’t hurt.”
She doesn’t tell me to stop, so I take that as permission to keep going. Her calves are lean and strong, and her skin is so silky smooth that I don’t want to ever stop touching it.
She turns her head away from the television, pressing her forehead down into the couch cushion, and I know she’s just as affected as I am.
Even though I don’t want to, I take pity on her and stop my ministrations. I rub my thumb over her skin one last time, not kneading, but just a light goodbye touch. Then I leave her legs in my lap and prop my arms up along the back of the sofa, and try to return my attention to the movie.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watch the rise and fall of her back as she breathes. As the minutes tick past, the movement becomes less pronounced and her breathing calms. When she’s completely in control, she sits up. Since I dragged her closer earlier, she’s now sitting on the middle cushion directly beside me. I could drop my left arm forward off the back of the couch, and it would land around her shoulders.
While I’m debating whether or not it will be worth the elbow to the ribs it will surely earn me, she stands and looks down at me. “Right or left?”
I don’t know what she means, and the first conclusion my mind jumps to is that she’s asking which side of the bed I prefer.
She’s not. I know she’s not, but my brain seems to be at least a little divided on that conclusion. My voice thick with all the things I won’t let myself say, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“Your throwing arm? Right or left?”
Oh. I clear my throat and answer, “Right.”
“Scoot.” She pushes at my knees, and mechanically I slide over, making room for her on my right side. I’m only halfway on the middle cushion when she slides in beside me, deliciously close.