Oh sweet mother.
He wasn't going to let it go, and I guess I must have not really wanted to sit on the grass because I sighed. And then set my plate down right next to his. The only way to fit without having an entire butt cheek hanging off the edge was to straddle the bench, too.
My butt pretty much snuggled safely between Dex's thighs, our quads lined up.
We were sitting way too close. If I were to slouch, my back would hit his chest. I'm positive that if I took a deep breath, I'd touch him that way too. The denim of his jeans practically hugging my bare thighs almost made me make some kind of noise.
It was too much.
I breathed a little too deeply and my shoulder blades touched Dex's pecs. Crap.
You can do this, Ris. You can sit with a man like this. It's just Dex.
But that was the problem—it was Dex.
I swear on my life that his hips move forward just an inch. But an inch was an inch that bumped the seam of his pants, the cradle of his groin, smoothly against my rear.
I shivered.
When I looked over my shoulder as I reached for my black bean burger, his face was right there. And it was tight—so damn tight.
I smiled at him nervously, but Dex didn't smile back.
He stared at my face, his food untouched, and I had no clue what the heck was going on with him.
"Do you want me to move?" I whispered. I could see his mom looking at us from across the table. She wasn't even trying to play her gaze off.
He still said nothing.
Okay. "Charlie," I whispered again in a sing-song voice, trying to draw him out of whatever thought he was lost in.
But still, nothing.
All right. His mom kept watching us and I started to feel weird again.
I tried to get up. My butt was maybe just an inch off the bench when his warm hand landed on my outer thigh, the thumb on the inside and all four of his long fingers curled over the outside of my leg, and he pushed me back down gently.
"You're fine there." His voice was way too low.
I finally managed to nod my head and force a bite of black bean burger into my mouth to give me something else to do besides look at him, or focus on the heat of his body.
Because honestly, my stomach was doing flip-flops at our proximity. At the feel of that long, sinewy body practically cocooning mine. Sweet baby lord.
I mean, we’d been pretty close when he hugged me the other night but this was completely different.
“So, Iris, what’s your little brother up to?” Dex’s mom asked abruptly.
“He’s in the Army in Japan.”
She lifted up her eyebrows. ”Japan? That’s fancy. You been up to visit him?”
“Not yet.” Especially not when I couldn’t even reach him on the phone. “Hopefully one day soon.”
“You should, life’s short.” Debra winked.
I smiled at her and nodded. “I should start saving up for a plane ticket.”
One of the women I recognized from Mayhem tisked. “Girl, just find yourself a sugar daddy to pay for that.”
Did Dex just grunt?
“Pretty girl like you, I bet you could find a man like that,” she snapped her fingers.
Debra barked out a laugh that was eerily similar to her son’s. “Don’t listen to her. She’s always trying to talk everybody into finding sugar daddies.”
“That’s true,” Dex’s sister threw in. “But if you listen to Ma, she’ll tell you to find a good man that likes you, has good credit and a steady job.”
Debra nodded enthusiastically, pointing at two men standing up. “Yeah, and ya listened to me. See how well my advice worked out for you two?”
The Mayhem woman snorted, cutting me a look. “I still think you should find a sugar daddy.”
“Would you quit with that mess?” Debra huffed.
Something traced the curve of my shoulder, breaking my attention away from the women.
“Ignore ‘em.” It was Dex’s fingertip running over the strap of my bathing suit top. ”Like your bathing suit.” He drew a line down my shoulder blade.
And then he shuffled forward another inch, bringing his lower body even closer to mine. The fingers on my leg tightened, his thighs closing in on mine. Was that a grumble?
His finger made a line back up, slowly, and my stomach fluttered in recognition of his touch. “Eat, baby,” he muttered.
Oh hell. I was still holding the burger in my hand, mid-air after the last bite. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and smiled.
I'd maybe chewed three times before two thoughts hit me simultaneously. I was eating a black bean burger because his sisters had found out I was a vegetarian. And Dex's hand was still on my thigh.