California Dreamin'

“Okay. Well, do you think you could take a little break?” I ask with hope. “Maybe watch a movie with me or something?”

I can see him debating the merits of watching a movie with me. Actually, the merits of watching a movie with a little-too-naked me.

Sighing again, he nods. “Okay, yeah.”

I beam at him. “Awesome. Harry Potter? Chamber of Secrets?”

As soon as Dean sits beside me and the movie starts, I crawl over to him and fit myself in the crook of his arm. He turns rigid. I don’t even think he’s breathing as I lay my face on his strong, warm chest, my body flattening against his side.

Every part of me is touching every part of him and it’s heaven. How did I not realize it before? How did it take me so long to come to the conclusion that I love him, that I’ve always loved him?

I hate that my nearness is making him uncomfortable. I hate that there’s this awkwardness between us.

Suddenly, something occurs to me—I have seen my mom do this to my dad. I wrap my arm around him, bringing it up so I can reach his dark hair. I sink my fingers into it and rake my nails along the nape of his neck and his scalp.

“Fallon—”

I knew he’d protest so I cut him off. “Please, Dean. Please let me make you feel good.”

“I don’t need—”

“You do.” I look up and into his eyes. “Please?”

Clenching his jaw, he throws me a small nod and I grin at him.

After that, he lets me play with his hair, massaging the tension in his neck and shoulders away. A few minutes into it, I feel him relaxing. His body goes liquid and I burrow into his chest even more. He even groans.

That intimate sound echoes in my chest. “See? You needed loosening up.”

He chuckles. And then, he wraps his own arm around my back and brings me even closer, plastering my soft, malleable body against his hard, unforgiving one. I bite my lip and tighten my muscles to stop a major shiver from rolling through. It feels like my body is awake in all the different ways.

We stay like that for a little bit as the movie plays on his computer. I honestly don’t know what’s going on. All I know is him and the effect his body is having on me.

“Dean?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you… Do you have a girlfriend?”

“What?”

Okay, so, I don’t know where that came from. But now it’s out there. All the warmth and intimacy of the past half hour vanishes. I reluctantly move away from him and sit up.

I stare at the five o’clock shadow on his jaw as I ask, “Girlfriend. Do you have one?”

Someone who plays with your hair. Someone to massage the knots away from your shoulders. Someone you watch movies with.

“Why?”

I shrug and tuck my hair behind my ear. “I just… was wondering. Since you never mentioned anyone.”

Dean follows my gesture with his eyes. “No.”

Oh, thank God.

“Why not?” I ask casually, trying to hide all the relief I’m feeling.

“I’m busy.”

“With work?”

“With cases, yes.”

I shake my head at him. “God, you and your work. It’s okay to relax once in a while, you know. Go out. Have fun. Meet girls. I—” I cut myself off because, what the hell am I doing? I don’t want him meeting girls. I just want him to let loose a bit.

“I mean, meet people not just girls. People. Like, you know, don’t meet girls. Because you don’t know how girls are. Especially girls in L.A. They’re not what you’re looking for, trust me. You know? Yeah. Not those girls. You want a girl who would… you know…”

“No.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. A girl who would what?”

Suddenly, I realize his eyes are hooded. Kind of sleepy but not really. More like restrained. Similar to his body. His back is against the headboard, his legs straight and almost sprawled like they were in the car.

Even relaxed and lazy, Dean looks intimidating. Authoritative. Sexy.

Everything that’s lethal to me, my heart. My love and my lust. I’m hypersensitive, tight in my skin and bursting at the seams. And all I want is for him to kiss me. Kiss this tightness, this ache away.

“Girl who would what, Fallon?” he asks again lazily, like he has all the time in the world to stare at me, to pin me down with one look.

“Uh, a girl who would…” I lick my lip, feeling a tug in my lower belly, and he lowers his gaze to my mouth. “A girl who’d do anything for you.”

“Anything, huh?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” I fist the bedsheet and try to ground myself in the moment, and not completely drown in his eyes or this heavy, thick feeling. “Anything to just be close to you. Just to… just to be able to touch you. To smell you. Anything to look into your eyes when you smile, because they shine. A girl who’d do anything to be able to say to you that she l—loves you.”