“My awesomeness is escalating in direct proportion to your suckiness,” she said, outright scowling.
He grabbed the wrist of her uninjured hand and tugged it, forgetting that there was supposed to be no touching until after his fingers had brushed the silky skin of her thigh. She wore two Band-Aids on her fingers. “Aw, look. You risked your life. For me.”
Kristina dove for the present, nearly wrestling it out of his hands. Things went downhill from there, because his instinctive response was to hold it away from her, which caused her to half-fall across his lap. And then she was laughing and yelling at him and climbing up his body, bracing herself on his chest as she reached for the package in his outstretched hand.
Against his utter best interest, sheer competitiveness kicked in. Determined to keep her from getting the prize, Noah’s arm banded around her lower back. His grip plastered her front to his and trapped her breasts right at his eye level. Right at his mouth level.
Heat roared through his body and his cock was hard in an instant. He wanted to plunge his tongue in her lush cleavage and suck those beautiful full breasts into his mouth.
“I’m never giving you a present again, Cortez. Give it back,” she said.
“No,” he growled, breathing her scent in from up close. God, he was drowning in her. He wanted to drown in her.
What the hell am I doing?
Shaking his head, Noah lowered his arm and let Kristina grab the present. When she jerked back, he let her go, and she ended up kneeling right next to him. Breathing hard, she glared at him, but the humor was plain on her face.
“If you want this, you’ll repeat after me: Kristina is the best gift-wrapper ever and I will never make fun of her wrapping again.”
Releasing a shaky breath, Noah nodded and dropped his hands into his lap to hide his hard-on. “Kristina is the best gift-wrapper ever and I will never make fun of her wrapping again.”
Her lips twisted. “You gave in way too easy to that. Very suspicious.”
Nope. Not suspicious. Self-preservation. Because so far Noah’s plan to follow a few basic rules was totally FUBAR. For fuck’s sake.
He held out his hand and shrugged. “I want the loot.”
Smirking, she handed it back to him and crossed her arms, the gesture plumping her cleavage.
Noah tore his gaze away. “Beautiful job, Kristina. Truly.”
“That’s what I’m talking about,” she said, somewhat mollified.
He tore off the god-awful bacon paper—who even knew they made bacon paper?—and chuckled. “These are awesome,” he said, examining the heads of the superheroes closer. “You got me spatulas.”
She grinned. “Happy housewarming.”
“You didn’t have to do this,” he said, moving on to the next package. Ninja salt shakers. “I am going to have the coolest kitchen ever.”
“You totally are. We might have to have joint custody of a few things in this bag.”
“You can come visit any time you want. How ‘bout that?” Noah said.
“Well, that’s just a given,” she said.
“Of course it is. Speaking of which…” He pushed his fingers into his front jeans pocket. “I have a present for you.” Noah held out a brass key on a plain ring. “Since I have one to your place, I figured you should have one to mine.”
She grabbed it and smirked at him. “You just want me to come let you in the eight hundred times you’ll manage to lock yourself out.”
Noah nodded and chuckled. “Pretty much,” he said, going for the next present in the bag.
He pulled a unicycle-riding monkey pizza cutter from the knot of wrapping paper, which tempted another chuckle from him. In fact, the whole bag of gifts had him smiling more than he could last recall doing.
And it just emphasized the point—Kristina got him like no one else did. She knew what he needed and how to make him feel better without pressing him to talk, without worrying over him, without making him feel like he couldn’t take care of himself. And even though that meant she realized that he wasn’t doing that damn great, the way she’d chosen to deal with it meant a lot to him.
This. This was why Noah could never chance harming his relationship with Kristina.