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LAURA
You know that feeling that you get when you lose something you treasure for a period of time and finally, you win it back and it feels like its brand new? That's exactly how it felt when Eddie smiled that grin. The smile where his eyes would become small and his cheeks would bunch under them with an array of laugh lines scrunching on either side of his lips. It was a genuine smile. It was the brightest thing in the dark night and somehow made me fall for him all over again.
'Babe, you're scaring me.'
'Mm,' I hummed with the thoughtless smile on my lips. His brown eyes were like caramel. Like rich, dark swirls of sweetness. Which meant that the alcohol was still in my system. 'I can't help it. You make me so, so very...'
'Horny?'
I reeled back and thought about it. He wasn't wrong about that. I had an alien in my body but I was still part female who appreciated his very enticing stature of pure manliness.
I shrugged. 'If you say so. But mostly,' I blithely placed a finger over his lips and traced the plushness of it. 'Happy.'
I can't physically vomit, but I might. Sin was the biggest mood killer out there. I shut him out with a mental snarl, pushing all my focus on Eddie. It was easy to push him out, just stop thinking about the other creature in my head. Strain all my focus on Eddie.
Just him.
'And, definitely in a sensual way.'
'Stop it, Eddie. Not everything is about sex.'
He scoffed with no words. It was three in the morning and we were back in Eddie's apartment with the unusual quietness of all his neighbors sinking into our atmosphere. The silence was making the air thick and Eddie had strongly insisted on me sitting across his lap to make things worse. His hands kept rubbing the smoothness of thighs and a hand fit behind my back against the armrest. Pressing my cheek into the chill cushions of his couch, I felt much-needed sleep come to me.
'Can I ask you something?'
'Anything.'
'When you told me those things,' he said, drawing shapeless circles over my thighs and watching my skin mold to his touch, 'about the dates, the gifts, and everything - was it the truth? Or were you just winging it?'
I smiled up at him and nodded softly. 'It's the truth. I still have every single one of your gifts.'
He threw his head back with a tiny groan of despair. 'I'm such a bad boyfriend. I might have the custom cookie jar around here but - '
'It's a girl thing, Ed. It's okay.'
'You sure?'
'I'm never getting you gifts again but yeah, it's all good.'
