Ten #4
During one such tangent about a tournament in the US I’d never played, I found myself staring at Miles’s hands.
He’d picked up a sushi roll only to hold it untouched while he spoke, and my gaze lingered on his calluses and his neatly-kept nails, on each long finger with its jutting knuckles, and his fine, lithe wrists.
They were stunning hands, but with the addition of the woven bracelets he always wore, they were disastrously hot.
“Mat? Mat!”
“Yeesss?” I dragged my gaze away to find Katie shaking her head at me. “What?” I said. “Did I miss something?”
“Lots of things, because your mind is entirely elsewhere.”
Miles had reddened, a rare sight almost as distracting as his hands. “Mat, you’re sabotaging me,” he said. “I would kind of like your friend not to hate me.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I know where to place the blame,” Katie assured him.
Miles set the sushi roll down, and as he wiped his fingers on a paper serviette, I took hold of his wrist. “I cannot be blamed,” I said, turning his hand over.
“I mean look at this.” I traced a line from his protruding wrist bone down his little finger, taking in the smooth skin and the prominent veins and the definition of his knuckles. “These hands are ridiculous.”
“Trust you to get horny over hands.” Katie rolled her eyes. “You’re so predictable.”
“Oh, but I have it on good authority that I’m entirely unpredictable,” I said, and lifted Miles’s hand to my lips. As I kissed his knuckles, I looked up to find him watching me, a hint of colour still suffusing his cheeks.
My throat tightened and I felt drunk, the whole day having been so strange it had left me disoriented.
“Wow,” Miles said, reclaiming his hand with a self-conscious grin. “I didn’t realise getting you going took so little effort. Why have I been wasting time with sultry looks when I could just laze around and let you get slutty over my hands?”
Needing to distance myself from having just kissed his damn hand, I grinned back and said, “Maybe I only like them right now because you’re fondling sushi.”
“Oh, is that what I’ve been doing? I thought I was eating.”
“Just ignore him.” Katie shot me a disdainful look. “He’s not usually this ridiculous. I wouldn’t stay with him if he was.”
“Hey!” I said. “You’re the one who got mad at me in Paris when I didn’t—” I stuttered to a halt. Miles had picked up his sushi again, and was running the tip of his tongue around one end. I swallowed hard. “Uh . . .”
Katie dragged her hands down her face with a groan. “Oh my god, Mat!”
“He’s distracting!” I cried, gesturing at Miles, who hid his grin behind the fortunate sushi roll.
“I’m what?” he asked, all innocence, before proceeding to slide the damn thing slowly into his mouth without a hint of teeth like he was a fucking duck.
“Holy shit, you had better not neck that thing whole, I swear to god.”
Miles burst out laughing, having to yank the sushi out of his mouth to keep from choking on it.
“That’s it,” Katie said, throwing up her hands. “You two need a time out. You’ve already fucked once today, so quit it for five minutes!”
I bit the inside of my lip to keep from grinning, determinedly staring at the discarded soy sauce packets instead of Miles.
It didn’t help.
“What? Twice?” Katie feigned a series of sobs and gestured around the tiny apartment. “Is it safe to sit anywhere?”
After dinner, we put the TV on, and as Katie proclaimed that any touching would forfeit the last slices of chocolate mousse cake, Miles said, “I dare not take the risk, so you’d better sit in the middle.”
She eyed the space between us on the couch like it was lined with barbed wire. “Are you sure that’s safe?”
“Probably?” he said at the same time I said, “Maybe?”
“You are not filling me with confidence.” She pointed a finger at me, then at Miles. “No horny looks where I can see them. Over my head I can accept, just don’t make me part of this.”
We made it most of the way through the match she’d put on, but after cake, we got too handsy and Katie gave up on us.
“All right, out!” she laughed, pushing us toward the door. “Both of you. I need sleep, so go be horny across the hall.”
Miles made no complaint, just held out his hand to her. “It was lovely to meet you, and I’m sorry, again, for you having to see Mat’s ass.”
“Hey!”
“Thank you,” Katie said, ignoring me to take his proffered hand like she was desperately in need of the emotional support. “It was a trying moment, but I think with a great deal of therapy, I will, perhaps, survive.”
I folded my arms. “Well fuck you very much, both of you. My arse and I will just stay here, shall we?”
“Oh, no you don’t. Out!”
Laughing, she slammed the door behind us, and as I stepped out into the corridor, Miles swept me up in one arm. “Looks like you’re coming with me, Princess.”
“Princess?”
He smothered my protest with his mouth, pressing me gently back against the wall with the softest of kisses. The sort that made my heart race and my knees weak. “What’s wrong with Princess?” he murmured between them. “Seems like you’ve been thrown out and are in need of rescuing.”
The way his extra height forced me to look up was thoroughly unfair. As unfair as his smile and his soft cologne and his damn beautiful hands. They cupped my face, and by god did I want to drown in him.
“Yeah,” I said, lifting my chin for more. “I guess I am.”