8 #4
“Right there, huh?” His touch gentled instantly, and he moved in smooth circles over a knot in the muscle beneath his thumbs. “Try to relax, Pix. I’m not going to hurt you on purpose,” he said.
“It’s the accidental part I’m worried about,” she mumbled, though her sarcasm switch seemed to be malfunctioning. It would have been easier to stop him if he’d been bad at this, but, unfortunately, he wasn’t.
Another moment passed before she glanced up and caught him watching her face. His blue-gray eyes seemed to be looking for something. “Let me guess, I’m going to owe you after this,” she said dryly.
He pressed his lips into a hard line, one that almost looked irritated. “No, Pix,” he answered tightly. “You have a problem, and I can fix it. That’s all. No sense in you being in pain all night.” He released one foot and reached for the other without pause.
Olivia did her best not to melt into the sofa. She actually felt bad about her question; she’d meant to imply he had a motive, but she hadn’t really meant to insult his character. The voices in her mind began debating how best to apologize, but she never got the chance.
“Would you rather eat food from a fancy restaurant or a gas station for the rest of your life?” he asked, breaking the now-tense silence, and she was grateful.
“Definitely a gas station,” she said. “You can’t get a burger and fries at a fancy restaurant. ”
He shrugged, his thumbs still working over the arch of her right foot. “Well, sometimes you can, but it’ll probably have oysters or something on it.”
“Exactly. Why mess with a good thing?”
“But if you eat from a gas station all your life, you will never leave the bathroom.”
Olivia wrinkled her nose. The statement was unpleasant, even if it was true. “You have to be smart about it,” she countered. “You obviously shouldn’t eat sushi from a gas station, but burgers and tacos are usually alright.”
“And you’re going to eat burgers and tacos for the next sixty years?” he asked with raised eyebrows.
“I take it you’d choose the fancy restaurant?”
“Depends on the restaurant. Someplace that serves teeny, tiny portions that look like sea creatures? That’s not going to work. But a good steakhouse with blooming onions and really good apps? I’d be down with that.”
“So steak is your comfort food?” she asked.
He pressed the heel of his hand against the center of her foot. “Nah, my comfort food is Nutella toast with bananas,” he admitted. “My mom used to make it when I was sick.”
Olivia nodded, understanding the sentiment. “For me it’s chicken and gravy with rice. Mom made it for dinner every time Dad got home from a mission, and it still makes me feel like everything will be okay.”
Noah furrowed his brow. “Where would he go?”
“My dad? He was Special Forces for years, so he would just disappear—sometimes in the middle of the night—and we never knew exactly where he was or how long he’d be gone. Sometimes it was days, sometimes it was weeks, but he always came back. ”
A cloud seemed to pass behind Noah’s eyes, though his expression remained neutral. “Sounds terrifying,” he said.
“I didn’t love it,” she admitted, “but for us it was normal. An unsettling, bizarre sort of normal, I suppose. I never breathed easy until the chicken and gravy came out.”
He gave her foot one final squeeze before setting it on the cushion beside him.
Olivia briefly considered not taking up two-thirds of the couch but then dismissed the idea.
She was comfortable, and he didn’t seem to mind, so she tucked her bare feet under his leg and settled herself more fully against the throw pillows, feeling a little like the Queen of Sheba. It wasn’t a terrible sensation.
“Would you rather live in a tree house and never come down or in an underground bunker and never come up?” she asked.
Noah chuckled softly, shaking his head, and Olivia felt his humor mirrored on her own face. “Alright, so if I lived in a tree house...”
Almost an hour passed before she even wondered what time it was.
“Wow, it’s already eleven fifty-five!” she exclaimed after finally spotting a clock on one of the bookshelves.
Noah grunted in acknowledgement and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. “Well then, you’ve got five minutes to decide,” he said.
“Decide what?”
“Whether or not you’re going to kiss me at midnight.”
She snorted. “Okay, done. I’m not going to kiss you at midnight,” she said.
“Cone of silence, remember? Nothing that happens in here will follow us out there,” he said, gesturing toward the closest window .
Olivia crossed her arms over her chest and leveled him with a serious stare. “We’ve talked about this, Campbell. I am not going out with you.”
“And once again, Cohen, I’m not asking you out,” he declared with a smirk. “But I do think you’re going to kiss me anyway.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I think you want to, whether you like it or not, and what better chance to try it out than on New Year’s Eve when it doesn’t have to mean anything?”
His voice was full of challenge, like he was daring her to protest, and Olivia found herself actually considering the possibility. He was right, one kiss didn’t have to mean anything, especially if they agreed it wouldn’t.
“But, I mean, if you don’t think you can handle it, then that’s a different story,” he taunted.
“You talk a big game, Campbell, but what happens when you can’t live up to your own hype?”
He shrugged. “It’s never happened before.”
The gleam in his eye grew brighter, and Olivia felt herself make an impulsive decision. She swung her bare feet to the floor and rose to stand. “Fine, I’ll give you a chance to prove yourself,” she said.
Noah shot to his feet beside her, and the sudden heat in his eyes made her ribcage tighten.
“But I have rules,” she added.
He took a step forward, and she instinctively stepped back. She glanced at the clock. There were still three minutes until midnight, and she didn’t have to let him into her bubble until then.
“Rules?” he asked, already looking a bit like a tiger on the prowl .
“Yes, rules,” she repeated, taking another step back as he came closer. She held up her index finger as she counted. “One, your hands have to stay in neutral territory.”
A sneaky smirk inched across his face, and one finger came up under her chin.
He tipped her face up to his as he took another step forward.
She moved again, but this time she felt the wall of the summer house against her back.
A few choice words skittered through her mind; she hadn’t meant to let him push her into a corner—figurative or otherwise.
Noah looked down at her like he was memorizing the details of her face, and his hand grazed back along her jaw toward the nape of her neck. While he was technically playing fair, it suddenly didn’t feel like “neutral territory” at all.
“Okay,” he murmured.
Olivia swallowed hard and reminded herself that this meant nothing. There was no reason he should affect her like this; none at all. “Two,” she said, “this is one kiss. Once you break it, that’s it. No repeats, no do-overs, no curtain calls.”
He dipped his head, and Olivia felt the stubble on his chin graze the soft places on her neck. “Got it,” he said, though it was really more of a breath that skated across her skin and sent a cascade of goose bumps down her spine.
She told herself to stay still, to give only what she’d agreed to and no more, but her subconscious didn’t seem to be listening.
Instead, she felt her head tilt to one side without her permission, as if some parts of her brain were staging a mutiny.
She could feel her heart rate kick up another notch, and she tried to keep her mind from clouding over.
Why did he have to smell so good ?
He skimmed slowly along her jaw and came to hover over her mouth, mere millimeters away as the clock ticked down. “Anything else?” he asked.
Olivia sort of thought she’d had a number three, but whatever it was vanished from her mind as both his hands threaded into her hair. She merely shook her head in response.
The final countdown started, and the chanting from the main house was so loud they could hear it where they stood.
Ten!
Nine!
“One chance. Don’t choke,” she reminded him, though it was hard to talk when she could barely breathe. She wasn’t completely sure how she’d gotten into this predicament, but now that she was there, she could no more walk away than sprout wings and fly.
Eight!
Seven!
Noah pressed forward, pinning her completely against the wall, and Olivia felt her hands drift toward his waist of their own accord. The very air around them crackled with anticipation. “Stop talking,” he commanded.
Six!
Five!
Four!
Olivia’s eyes drifted closed.
Three!
Two!
One.