Текст книги "Rule"

Автор книги: Jay Crownover

Соавторы: Jay Crownover
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

“I can stay up here and wait for you.  I’m hungry though so you need to feed me when you’re done.”

He bent down and put his lips right next to my ear.  “Oh I’ll feed you when I’m done alright.”

A hot shiver shot through me so I gave him a heavy lidded look.  “Goody.”  He kissed my cheek and made his way back to the waiting client.  I shifted my gaze to Cora and blushed when I noticed she was gaining like a demented Cheshire Cat.

“So it’s like is it?”

I blinked and shifted from foot to foot.  She grabbed my hand and pulled me around the counter actually shoving me into another leather chair that was stashed back there.

“Like what?”

She swiveled her chair so we were facing each other and gave me a level look.  “It’s like all hot and bothered but sweet and fuzzy too.  I didn’t know the asshat had any of that in him.  You make him human.”

“That was the second time she had mentioned something like that but I had to wait until she fielded a couple phone calls to question her about it.  “What do you mean about that exactly?”

“I’ve worked with Rule for the last five years.  I was here when he and Nash started their internship right outta high school.  Phil and I go way back so I’ve known the boys for a while.  I adore Rule.  I think it’s genetically impossible not to be kind of in love with him when you come equipped with a vagina.  It’s just something about all that angsty, moody swagger he has that makes you want to cuddle him up and make him feel better.”

I knew exactly what she was talking about so I just nodded in agreement.  “But he’s also arrogant and explosive, he treats women like crap because too many of them let him get away with it and for a long time after his brother died I watched him just go through the motions of living his life the way it was before.  He came to work, he hung out with is boys, he gave me shit on a daily basis and he screwed his way through the entire Front Range but he was doing it all locked inside this bubble that none of us who loved him could get through.  He was cold and unreachable but then all of a sudden there were cracks and some of the old Rule was showing through.  The robot version of himself he had been operating from for so long started to fade and the good ole human Rule was back and I think it has to do with you.”

“That’s a really nice thing to say.”

“It’s not nice if it’s the truth.  So tell me how a vanilla girl like you all virgin skin and no piercings gets into a guy like Rule.  From first appearances I would never peg him as your type; you look more Brooks Brothers than Dickies if you know what I mean.”

I twirled a piece of hair around my finger and watched as she typed a bunch of stuff in the computer.  She was freakishly efficient and fast and I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about how sexy I found Rule with someone that already had intimate knowledge of my boyfriend’s junk.

“When he was sixteen he came home one day with an awful tattoo of a horseshoe and a shamrock on his forearm.  Phil had given Nash a tattoo machine and some ink for his sixteenth birthday and instead of trying to learn on pigs or melons they decided that they would try to learn on each other.  Both of them were always really gifted artistically.  Nash was more into street art and graffiti type stuff where Rule just fiddled around with it and happened to learn he had some real talent.  Anyway I was over at his house and I don’t know if you ever got a chance to meet Remy but identical doesn’t even come close to how those two looked.  The same eyes, the same dark hair, the same innate sense that they were out of this world good looking but Rule came home with that terrible tattoo and suddenly he was a new guy.  He claimed his skin as his own, made the mark to define who he was and how he was different from Remy and it was just beautiful how much he loved what changing his outer appearance did for his inner sense of self.  He’s always been a babe but when he started to customize the hotness it just made it better and better.  Without all the tattoos and piercings he just wouldn’t be Rule.”

“And what about you?  You’re not into any of it?”

“I don’t really know.  I had really particular parents growing up and if I had come home with a tattoo or any kind of extreme piercing they would have grounded me until graduation so I never even thought about it.”

“How old are you now?”

“I just turned twenty.”

“You still live at home?”

“Nope.”

“Then shouldn’t you be allowed to do whatever you want with your body without fear of their reaction?”

I sighed and swiveled my chair back and forth.  “Yeah.  I’ve actually been thinking about getting a little something done.”

“A tattoo?  You know Rule would give you something beautiful especially since he’s the one that would have to look at it all the time.”

We shared a laugh that had the guys in the shop looking at us curiously.

“No I was thinking about getting my nipples pierced.”  I wasn’t normally so open but I figured since she did it for a living it was kind of like talking to a doctor about a health problem.  Her unusual colored eyed widened and she gave me a huge grin.

“That’s super-hot.”

I shrugged and continued to twirl my hair.  “I like the way it looks and like you said I’m familiar with your work so I know it can be awesome I just don’t know that I’m ready for something so extreme.”

“They take a bit to heal but when they do it’s amazing.  If you decide to go through with it let me know and I’ll do it for you for free, I’ll just charge you for the jewelry.”

“Well Rule’s birthday is next month so if I do it it’ll be before then.”

She clapped her hands together and giggled like a little girl.  She was kind of crazy but I think I liked her.  I had always had such a hard time making friends and just being at ease around new people it was a testament to all the positive ways Rule was influencing me that I could talk with this wacky girl with no reservations or inhibitions.

“Oh a sexy surprise I just love that idea.  Like I said just let me know and we can work something out, I like seeing my boys happy and doing right by a good girl.”

“Thanks, I think.”

We chatted easily for another hour because whatever Rule was working on was taking him longer than he thought.  I watched her process out the clients that were finished getting their designs done and watched her help a few people come in that had questions and were interested in setting up consultations.  She chased off another girl that came in looking for Rowdy this time and by the time Rule walked up to the counter with his freshly bandaged canvas I felt like I had made a new friend.  She was sarcastic and witty as hell but her insights into the way my guy’s head worked was clear and coming from a different perspective than I had ever heard before.

Rule’s client looked like he was barely old enough to drive but he was sporting some major artwork and had his entire upper arm wrapped up and shiny with ink and salve.  I didn’t miss the appreciative look he gave me as he was walking out and apparently neither did Rule.  He flicked the kid in the back of the head and told him that if he wanted his sleeve finished he better keep his eyes to himself.  He told me to give him just ten more minutes so he could clean up his station and then we could go.  I watched him walk away and noticed that the female client Nash was working on and the young girl that the artist they called Mase was working on both did the same thing.  Cora was right, it was just some kind of magnetic pull he had over the opposite sex and as long as I was with him I was just going to have to learn to deal with it.

He moved quick and came back to collect me in no time at all.  He handed Cora a bank bag and hollered out goodbye to no one in particular and pulled me out with him into the now frigid evening air.  I shivered involuntarily and huddled into his side while he adjusted the hood of his sweatshirt over his still mostly naked head and shoved his arms through the sleeves of a black mechanic style work coat that had the tattoo shop’s logo and name embroidered in a bright design on the back.

“Do you want to order something for delivery or go somewhere?”  He rubbed his hands together roughly and then pushed them under the fall of my hair to clasp the back of my neck.  They felt like blocks of ice so I shivered even harder until he pulled me to his chest and tucked my head under his chin.

“Delivery so I don’t have to move my car.”

“Cool what are you in the mood for I’ll call on the way home?”

“Anything really I’m just hungry.”

“Pizza?”

“Sure but no green peppers or mushrooms on my half.”

I hooked an arm through his and gingerly tried to keep up with his long strides as we made our way to the Victorian.  My phone vibrated in my pocket and I frowned as I saw it was once again my father.  I was sure whatever story my mother had spun about my last visit had him all riled up but I just didn’t have the patience to get a lecture from a guy who’s new wife was only a few years older than me on morality and suitable romantic partners.  I sent the call to voicemail and let go of Rule to sidestep a particularly dangerous and icy patch on the side walk.

He scowled at me and snatched my hand back up.  He tugged me around so that I was pressed up against his front while he walked forward and guided me backwards.  “I wouldn’t let you fall.”

I reached up to put my hands on his shoulders and gazed up into eyes that were just as frosty as the snow coating the ground all around us.  “No?”

“No.  You don’t trust me?”

“Most of the time I do.”

“Why not all the time?”  We stopped at the front of the Victorian and I moved my hands from his shoulders to the back of his neck which made his hood fall off.

“Because I’ve never trusted anyone all the time.  It’s the people I care about the most that always seem to do the most damage.”

“I’m not going to be one of those people Shaw.”  If only he knew how bad it had hurt my heart each time I had to see him with one of his conquests he wouldn’t be saying that.  I forced a small smile and brushed my fingers over the soft black hair starting to grow on his head.

“I hope not.”

He just shook his head and hauled me inside because it was way too cold to keep messing around outside.  He shrugged out of his coat and hoodie while motioning for me to hand my stuff over.  “Nash has a date tonight so he won’t be home until later if at all.”  He disappeared down the hall to drop his armful in his room and came back on the phone with the pizza place.  I took down a couple plates and handed him a beer while looking in a futile attempt to see if the boys had anything in the fridge to make a salad with.  I needed to get some normal food in this place if I was going to keep spending time here or I was going to end up the size of a baby hippo.

“I think he’s probably done with having me around in the man-zone.  I know Ayden mentioned that she almost got an eyeful while you were over this morning.  They’re undoubtedly sick of us.”

He laughed and took a chug out of the beer bottle.  “I didn’t mean to surprise Ayden this morning but I thought she was gone.  I didn’t know she just went running.”

“Yeah she goes every morning and it’s not like she was complaining in fact she complimented the view.”

He snorted.  “Nash doesn’t mind having you here he likes that you actually cook and that we don’t have to get delivery or bring stuff home every single night.  Plus you smell good and always pick up the random stuff we leave laying around.  If having you here got on his nerves he would say something to me and more than likely to you as well.  He has no problem letting Rome know when he has over stayed his welcome.”

I leaned back against the counter and twisted the cap off a bottle of water.  “So Cora was telling me all about your ink bunnies or tattoo trollops as she calls them.  I had no idea just how far your appeal reached.  Girls got work that they aren’t going to love in ten years just to spend time with you.  That’s pretty crazy.”

“Cora has a big mouth and exaggerates but getting tattooed is pretty intimate no matter who the client is.  When they leave they’re leaving with something you put on their skin forever.  They trust you to capture their vision and execute it perfectly so sometimes that means you have to invest in them as a person to some degree.  Some girl’s especially younger ones get really wrapped up in the process and turn it into more than it is.  I have my fair share of clients that have little crushes on me, that come back for work not because I’m awesome but because they want to spend time in the setting but it’s my job so I keep it professional.  I’m not going to lie I’ve hooked up with a client or two but never after work or never while I was in the process of doing a piece.  Sex and work don’t belong in the same place.”

I sucked back some of the water and mulled that over for a minute.  “Does it bother you that I don’t look like the typical girls you find attractive?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

I hopped up on the counter and let my legs dangle.  I tapped the tip of my nails on the tiled surface and cocked my head to the side while I studied him closely.  “I don’t have tattoos or piercings.  I don’t have sex hair or wear clothes that are impossible to breathe in, I’m just you know, a normal girl and I’ve seen enough, been around enough of your morning after’s to know that I’m not what you typically gravitate towards and I just wonder if when you look at me you wonder if I could look better if I looked different.  Looked more like you and your crew.”

He put the beer down on the dining room table and locked eyes with me while he stalked towards me.  Before that would have made me nervous and panicky but now it made me get all warm and breathless.  He didn’t stop until he was pressed right up against me, between my legs with our hips aligned in a perfect position to make me forget my own name.

“When I look at you I don’t see anything but you and Shaw, you are perfect.  I don’t care what color your hair is, if you’re pale or tan, if you have makeup on or just woke up all I care about is that when I look at you, you always look back and see me.  You’re beautiful inside and out and if you wanted to tattoo all that pretty white skin from head to toe I would be honored to put it there for you but if not I’ll take you all smooth and milky white any chance I get.”

It was heart wrenchingly romantic.  It was the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever said to me and I was about to go all weepy female on him and blubber out how wonderful everything he said was and how much he meant to me, well either that or I was going to yank his clothes off and have at him right there in the kitchen.  I was waffling between the two reactions when the doorbell rang and shattered the mood.  He pushed away from me and went to collect dinner.  I took a minute to get my composure back.  The boy was potent all right and I planned to enjoy every single minute that it was directed at me.

Chapter 13

Rule

There were a few moments over the last week that had been so perfect, so poignant that they literally froze me with fear and made me want to run the other way as fast and as far as I could get.  Sitting on the couch in my living room eating pizza and knocking back a few cold ones while I watched Sports Center and she messed around on her computer doing school work was one of them.  Watching her just be had me suddenly feeling like I was suffocating in the rightness of it all and I had to escape to a burning hot shower before I did something stupid like ask her to marry me or tell her to take a hike.  She just fit, she filled every hole I had in my life and the idea of her not being there, of it going away terrified me like nothing I had ever felt before.  I didn’t want to rely on her, didn’t want to build a mountain out of what might just be an early in the relationship infatuation but there was something there that made me think if this all went away because of something I did or because she suddenly woke up and realized how much better she could do that I would never be the same.

The last few weeks had been amazing.  I liked having her in my house and in my life and I enjoyed making a place for myself in hers.  My friends all adored her and I think had tiny little crushes on her because she was just so oblivious to her appeal that it was endearing and hard not to fall for.  I could tell when we left the shop that Cora was a fan and that meant a lot because she was kind of like a big sister and I trusted her instincts when it came to people.  It was why she was such a good shop manager.  Shaw was already part of my family and after I had given her the rundown of what went down on my visit home she had wasted no time in firing of a scathing email to mother letting her know that in no uncertain terms was she going to stand for that behavior and vehemently asking her to seek help.  She had my back and not for the first time I wondered how long she had been fighting for me and I hadn’t noticed.  It always made me feel like shit.

The quiet moments were settling and made me feel like I was building a foundation to something great and the passionate moments, the moments where she looked at me like I was a present she had always wanted to unwrap were enough to make me think I had found the one person that would never bore me in bed.  The thing about being the only guy she had ever been with was that I got to teach her everything and Shaw had always been an A+ student.  Whether it was fast or slow, gentle or rough, a quickie that blew my mind or an all-night session that had her running late for class the next morning there was no doubt that we were sexually compatible.  She was starting to figure out her own preferences, like the fact she liked it a little rougher and more dirty than I would have figured her to but she also somehow managed to find humor in the act when it was awkward or not going the way one of us intended and I couldn’t remember ever having as much fun in bed in my life.  I didn’t know it was possible but she even made sex better and the thought of any of it or all of it going away just made me want to fall into a hole and never climb out.

I was trying to shake off the fear after all it was just a nice night at home and Nash was gone so I should be doing my best to make her scream my name over and over again at the top of her lungs but the doubt lingered and I stayed in the shower until the water ran frigid and cold forcing me out.  I ran a fuzzy towel over my head and face and secured another one loosely around my waist.  I left my clothes in a heap on the floor and wandered into my room figuring she would still be out in the living room doing her homework and I would have a couple more minutes to get my shit together only the TV was off and she was sitting in the middle of my big bed sipping on the beer I had abandoned when I bolted earlier.  As if that wasn’t enough she was only wearing my T-shirt that had the tattoo parlors logo on it.  It looked better on her than it ever had on me and she was watching me with very serious eyes the color of new grass.

“What’s going on?”

I cleared my throat and tried to play it off.  “Nothing.  Why?”  Only this was Shaw and she knew my bullshit better than almost anyone.  She scooted to the edge of the bed and set the beer down on the night stand.

“Because you were in there forever and you already took a shower this morning.  Something spooked you and you ran I want to know what it was.”

I considered lying to her, considered telling her that she was just imagining things but in the end knew that I just needed to come clean and hope that she didn’t freak out because I was so emotionally screwed up.

“All this,” I waved a hand between the two of us.  “It’s so easy, so basic and thoughtless that sometimes it freaks me out.  I’m not used to normal and ordinary so it makes me nervous.  My life was always about trying to grab onto fleeting moments of pleasure, of feeling good and now I have that all the time with you and I get lost in my head wondering what I’m going to do to screw it up or how I’m going to keep it together if you decide to take it away.  Sometimes I get sucked into my visions of what could happen and I have a really difficult time staying in the present.  Watching TV with you, just being with you sooths something inside me that I didn’t even know needed soothing but it also makes something in there cower in fear.  I’m sorry.”

She just watched me and I prepared myself for her to get up off the bed and walk out the door.  If she did I was pretty sure towel or not I would chase her into the cold and beg until she came back.  Instead she unfolded from the bed and came up to me on bare feet.  My shirt covered all the good stuff but just barely.  She stopped so that we weren’t touching but we were close enough to share breath.

“It scares me too Rule.  I’m not used to ordinary either and I never thought I would have that with you, never thought I would have anything with you at all so it’s okay to get a little lost in your head as long as you come back and we can talk about it.  I’m not going to ask you to give anything you aren’t comfortable with.  People have done that to me my entire life and I’m sick of it.”

I exhaled a hard breath and unclenched the fists I hadn’t been aware I had curled up at my sides.

“What if I ask you to give me everything Shaw, what if I want it all?  Won’t that make me just like all the rest of them?”

She made a noise in her throat and then broke into a smile that nearly killed me on the spot she was just so lovely and pure.  “No because you don’t have to ask for anything, all of it is already yours.  You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to give it to.”  This girl was going to be the end of me.  She put a hand on each of my sides, one splayed over the angel one splayed over the reaper and I thought my heart was going to pound out of my chest.

“You have to promise not to bail on me when I get lost, Shaw.  You have to promise to just wait it out until I can find my way back.  I need to know you’re at the end of the tunnel when everything goes black.”

“I know how to wait for you Rule and I don’t mind doing it as long as you promise not to shut me out.  I can’t do this with you, be so wrapped up in you and what’s happening between us if you’re going to close the door on me when it gets to be too much.  My heart can’t take that.”

“I know.”  But I wasn’t sure that was a promise I could keep.  My default was to return to what I knew and that was distance and space so that I could protect myself.  “I can do my best Shaw but I told you all along I’m not real sure how to do this whole relationship thing and I’m scared shitless I’m going to do something to screw it up.”

She leaned forward and let her hands glide up around my back and across my shoulders.  She pressed a soft, open mouthed kiss to the center of my chest and it made my entire life zero in on that tiny point of contact.

“Well you can be scared alone or we can be scared together.  I prefer the second option but if you need some space to get your head around it and figure out what you want I can make that happen.  I want to be with you Rule, but I’m not going to be here with you if it makes you hurt and makes you freak out.  We both deserve better than that.”

I wasn’t sure at this point it was about what I deserved or not but I wasn’t stupid enough to let what I had with her get demolished under the weight of doubt I couldn’t control.  I finally reached out and pulled her to me in a suffocating hug that pressed all her length against all my bare skin.  I had spent plenty of time with her this morning, making her beg, turning myself inside out but that didn’t seem to matter, my cock reacted under the towel letting her know that whatever was going on inside my head had no bearing on how my body felt about her.  “I’m just messed up Shaw.  I’m sorry that I get this way but the last thing I want is to chase my tail all alone.”  I kissed her, letting her feel the things I couldn’t say as they burned through my blood.  I wanted her always and the idea of that made my knees weak.

She let me devour her mouth, let me get my hands all tangled up rough in her hair, let me press her up against the closest wall and press an insistent erection against her all without complaint or argument.  There was no gentleness, no concern for skill or whether or not I was making it feel good for her, all that existed was a blinding need to get inside her, to make her feel the emotion that was making me go crazy.  I needed to syphon off some of the want and need and the only way to do it was to get it out of me and into her.  Her head made a dull thunk against the wall and I felt her suck in a tense breath and still none of it gave me pause.  The towel hit the floor and my t-shirt offered no resistance as I rushed through getting both of us naked.  Somewhere in my head I knew I needed to slow down, needed to get control back that my hands were too hard on her, that my mouth was going to leave marks but I couldn’t pull it in.

She whispered my name, tried to get me to slow down but I didn’t care.  I was ready to just move in her, to burry all the fear and uncertainty blindly inside her warm body but this was a girl that knew all my tricks, knew that I was operating from a place where I probably wouldn’t even remember what I was doing in the morning and she wasn’t going to let me turn her into another faceless conquest that I used to find silence.  Since I no longer had hair and was so much bigger than her she had to resort to digging her nails into my scalp and pressing her teeth down on my invading tongue to get me to jerk back and give her some breathing room.  She struggled to catch her breath and pushed away from the wall by planting her hands in the center of my chest and giving me a hard shove.

I stumbled back a step and shook my head back and forth.  “Casper,” I wanted to apologize, wanted to tell her I would never devalue all that she was coming to mean to me on purpose but she didn’t give me a chance.  She stood up on her tiptoes and put a small hand over my mouth.  Her green eyes were big and there was a mixture of desire and trepidation in them that twisted my heart into a knot.  This girl just simply understood me and wasn’t going to blame me for all the crazy that I had built up inside of me.

“Just don’t, Rule.”  She moved her hand and kissed me with a million more levels of care than I had just shown her.  “You need me to take care of you right now so I’m going to do it but I’ll be damned if you don’t know its me.”

“I know it’s you Shaw.”

“Good because for a minute there I wasn’t sure and I can’t even being to tell you how much that pissed me off.  Now shut up and let me help you out of the dark.”

I went to grab for her, to wrap her up and hold her close but she evaded my hands and slithered around so that she was on her knees in front of me.  I stopped breathing for a second when her lips landed somewhere below my navel and my abs contracted hard enough that it hurt.  We had messed around plenty but this wasn’t and area she had seemed ready to venture into before now.  My dick quivered in anticipation as the tip of her tongue traced the outline of the mermaid I had inked down there where the long tail curled right around the base of my cock.  I didn’t know how far she was willing to take it so I gingerly placed my hands on the top of her head.  Her hair felt like silk against my fingertips and I stop moving just in case anything I did was going to make her stop.

“Shaw.”  I wasn’t sure if I was going to ask her to keep going or to stop because I wasn’t sure how much I could take.  I felt wound up too tight and too ready to break as it was.  “You don’t have to do this.”  I meant it when I said it but I also knew there was a good chance I would die if she decided to stop.  Her mouth was damp and warm and the apadravya piercing I had through the tip of my dick and the Jacob’s ladder that was spaced out on the underside pulled the sensitive skin taunt when she closed it over the eager flesh.  My eyes squeezed shut as I hit the back of her throat and every sensation I had ever experienced up to this point in my life ceased to exist.

I had received head from a bunch of different girls in my lifetime, had enjoyed it pretty much every single time but there was something about having Shaw on her knees before me, having her suck and pull me into her pretty mouth that made this experience better than all the rest.  I was breathing hard and my knees were suddenly feeling like they weren’t going to hold me up anymore.  My cock throbbed in time to my heartbeat and flesh that was sensitive suddenly felt to tight and ready to split into pieces.  I didn’t have the words to encourage her or to tell her what I liked and didn’t like, not that it mattered because just like with everything else we did in the dark she seemed to have a natural aptitude for it.  She played with my piercings, her quick little tongue darting in and around metal that heated and cooled as she moved her mouth around it.  I sucked in a breath and tried to stave off the impending orgasm but there was no controlling it.  I gasped her name in warning, tried to tug at her long hair to let her know that she might want to get out of firing range but she wasn’t having any of it.  She finished me off like a champ, placed a kiss on my quivering stomach while I tried to get my mind back in working order and glided to her feet in all her naked glory.  She lifted a blond brow and flipped her now tangled and messy hair over her shoulder.

“I’ll always take care of you Rule, in fact I like doing it because it makes me happy and it feels good but I’m not ever going to let you use me to work out your demons like you did with all those girls that came before me so you better learn the difference.”

I didn’t answer her because she was right so instead I picked her up by the waist and tossed her on the bed.  I didn’t need to give her time to get ready for me I was pretty sure that working me over better than anyone ever had, had done a good job of turning her on and making her wet and slippery.  Her folds were already slick and ready for whatever I had to give.  When I moved inside I made sure the top ball of my piercing rubbed against her most sensitive parts.  Now that we had sex with nothing between us I knew even if I wasn’t particularly stellar in the sack that having all that jewelry down there could and would create a sensation that got her off regardless, not that I didn’t always make it my goal to make her lose her mind.  She hooked her legs up around my hips as I moved in and out of her and let her eyes fall at half-mast.  I was braced up above her and her hands were wrapped around my biceps.  I was pretty sure I could die a happy man having her look up like that at me, with having her moan and writhe beneath me as pleasure shot through her body and made it clench around mine.  I had never really given much thought to monogamy and committing to having sex with only one person over and over again because I had never really seen that as a path I was going to take.  With her I knew it to the bottom of my soul that I would be happy just having her, making her fragment and break apart.  When she moaned my name low and needy it triggered my own release and I buried my face in the delicate curve of her neck and growled like a feral animal.  After we were both wrung out I collapsed on top of her in a boneless heap and felt her wrap her slender arms around me.  I kept my face pressed into her neck and gave her a series of butterfly kisses with my eyes closed.