Tipsy (Take It Off #5)(28)
Author: Cambria Hebert

I shook my head. “I was watching a movie.”

He glanced at the blue screen on the flat screen. “Looks entertaining.”

“I fell asleep,” I said, sheepish.

“Your hair is messy.” He pointed out, lazily unzipping his leather jacket.

My pulse started pounding. I told myself it was because he insulted me and I was mad. I was about to snap some really good comeback, but words failed me when the jacket slid off his arms and he tossed it onto a chair nearby. Then he yanked the gray cap from his head and tossed it beside his jacket.

My hands tightened around the blanket I was using to shield myself. I almost laughed out loud because there wasn’t a shield in this entire universe that would protect me from the freaking sexiness he exuded.

Ripped jeans dipped low on his abdomen, so low that I knew just the slightest lift of his arms would reveal to me his flat, hard stomach and the waistband of his boxers. The long-sleeved T-shirt he was wearing molded to his body, almost like it suffered from static cling.

But I knew better.

If I were that shirt I would caress every last inch of his skin I could.

The silver ring in his lower lip taunted me, and if it weren’t for his amazing body, I wouldn’t be able to take my eyes off the piercing.

I had no idea I was such a lustful ho. Until I met Blue.

“Your eyes are still a little fuzzy from sleep.” He observed, stepping closer to the couch. His voice turned husky, like he knew my eyes weren’t fuzzy from sleep—like he knew it was desire he provoked within me.

When I didn’t say anything, he stopped, his legs coming up against the couch. “You got room over there for me?”

My stomach quivered with nervous excitement, and I involuntarily squeezed my thighs together with anticipation. Slowly, I lifted up the blanket, inviting him close, peaking up at him from beneath my lashes.

Even though the couch was sizable, he sat so close that his entire side and hip brushed up against me. I imagined it was a lot like the feeling of sticking your finger in a light socket. My entire body was zapped with energy and it rippled all the way down to my bare toes.

“I like your pants,” he said, a grin curving his lips.

I felt my cheeks heat with embarrassment. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”

“I’ve wondered,” he murmured, turning his head so he could look at me fully.

“About what?”

“About what you did when no one was looking.” He tucked a stand of blond hair behind my ear. “How you dressed.” He reached between us and grabbed a wayward piece of popcorn. “What you eat, what you do…”

I swallowed thickly. That implied he thought about me. A lot.

“It’s not very exciting.”

“Everything about you excites me.”

“Is this a booty call?” I blurted out. I felt my own eyes widen after I heard the words that just shoved their way out of my mouth.

He threw back his head and laughed. I stared at the perfect rows of white teeth in his mouth. He had a sexy laugh: throaty and deep. “Could this even be considered a booty call if I’ve never had any of that purple booty?”

Oh, God. Did he get a glimpse of my purple rear end when I wasn’t looking?

My face flamed with mortification. I wanted to yank the blanket over my head and disappear. I sounded completely arrogant just now, implying that I was so irresistible that he would come here in the middle of the night just for some action.

It reminded me that he never actually told me why he was here.

“You’re cute when you’re flustered.” Blue teased.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, concern pushing back the embarrassment I suffered.

“Everything’s fine,” he said, stretching his arm out along the back of the couch. I resisted the urge to rest my head against it.

“You’re sure?” I asked, scrutinizing his face, looking for even a hint of doubt.

He nodded. “It’s been a long week. I needed a break.”

The weariness I first sensed when I opened the door reappeared. He did seem tired. Working undercover had to be taxing. It was a twenty-four-hour job. He never got a break.

I tilted my head to the side and studied him. “Do the lines ever get blurry?” I asked thoughtfully.

“Blurry how?”

“Between the good and the bad. Between Blue and Gray. It seems like pretending to be someone else all the time could be dangerous. It could make you forget who you really are.”

“I guess sometimes, yeah,” he replied. “Sometimes people commit crimes for reasons they think are honorable. It doesn’t make it right… but I understand it.”

I nodded. “What about you?” I whispered. “How do you keep track of who you are?”

Blue’s gaze was penetrating. The unfathomable color of his stare was so intent and measuring that my chest tightened. It was almost as if he were stripping me bare. Not stripping away my clothes or thinking about me in that way… but looking past the way I looked, past the sexual tension that hummed around us like he was looking for something specific, something that would determine his answer.

Based on the answer he gave, I would wholly assume that he found whatever he was searching for.

His voice practically became my oxygen. I breathed him in. His voice. His presence. His words. “Sometimes it does get hard. Like when I’m surrounded by people who have their own specific code for life, one that I don’t understand. Or when it’s really late and I’m really tired and it’s so dark in my room the only thing I can do is think. Sometimes my thoughts blur… and I can’t tell who is Blue and who is Gray.”

“How do you figure it out?”

“I think about you.”

Everything around me ceased. There was nothing. Nothing but those four words.

“I call up the memory of your laugh. I think about your hair and how it always looks like you just crawled out of bed. I pretend it was my bed and I’m the one who made your hair look like that. I remember how you felt in my arms that night we danced in the rain and how I thought I had finally found someone I never wanted to let go of.”

My chest felt tight. Physically tight. It was hard to breathe because so much emotion welled up inside me.

“Do you know why I picked the name Gray, Julie?”

“Because you were going with a color theme?” I squeaked.

He flashed a quick smile and shook his head. His arm stretched between us and the pad of his thumb stroked along my cheekbone and curved beneath my eye, slightly tickling the fringe of bottom lashes. “Because that night after our date… the only thing I could think about were your eyes. The color of a cloudy sky on a winter’s day.”