The Stillness Of You by Julie Bale

This crazy fucking explosion I feel inside.”
    There was
silence, and then…
    “ No,” she
said softly. “It’s not just you.”
    I groaned
and kissed her shoulder, loving how she shuddered against me. “I
want to learn all your deepest and darkest secrets.” I was teasing
but her fingers stopped stroking my arm and she
stiffened.
    “What if my
secrets are things you can’t deal with?”
    I frowned
though I tried to keep my tone light. “Have you murdered
anyone?”
    “Not that I
know of.”
    A heartbeat
passed.
    “Then we’re
good.”
     
    ***
     
    I woke up
with a stiff neck and an arm that was on fire. Georgia was still sleeping and gingerly I
pulled my arm free, the ache in my gut still there as I stared down
at perfection. It was late, we’d missed our run, and the sun was
coming in her window causing a kind of halo to dance around
her.
    She was still
on her side and I took a few seconds to appreciate what it was that
laid there. So much creamy skin, all soft and curvy. I wanted to
trace the indent of her waist and run my fingers across her hips
and over her ass but I was afraid to wake her.
    Don’t get
me wrong—I wanted to wake her—I wanted her to wake up with me
buried deep inside her but it was going to have to wait. After last
night I knew I needed to take it slow with this girl.
    Aside
from the fact that my dick didn’t seem to understand that notion, I
was fine with it. In fact, I was looking forward to spending as
much time with Georgia as I could. I wanted to know what made her
tick. I wanted to know what she was afraid of…what her dreams and
goals were.
    I wasn’t
bullshitting. I wanted to know her secrets.
    But she
was right. We barely knew each other and if this was going to be
something other than just a hook up, a relationship for fuck sakes,
I needed to get it right.
    With a
groan I leaned over, because I couldn’t help myself, and I kissed
the dimple just above her butt. I would have loved to have turned
her onto her back because other than a quick glimpse the night
before, her breasts were still pretty much a mystery to me—a
mouth-watering mystery.
    My dick
sprang to life at the thought and I rolled away from her—needing a
bit of space and perspective. There was time for Georgia to be
naked. I grinned. Lots of time.
    I’d just
stepped out of her bedroom when I heard him.
    “You’ve got to
be fucking kidding me.”
    Mother fucker .
    I squinted into
the face of a very, very, pissed off Matt King and held my hands
up, palms out. “Dude, it’s not what you think.”
    He took a
few steps closer and before I could say anything else, the bastard
surprised me—fucking sucker punch. His fist connected with my jaw
and I swung into the wall so hard a framed photo fell to the ground
and crashed.
    “ What the
fuck?” I snarled, shouldering him in the gut and sending him
backward , hard.
    The two
of us glared at each other, until Matt spoke. “I told you to stay
away from her. She’s fucking trouble. I can’t have her screwing
with your head.”
    “ What the
hell are you talking about?” He wasn’t making any sense. “What are
we? Five years old?”
    Something
soft touched my shoulder and I glanced down at Georgia. She’d
thrown on a robe and stood a few inches from me. She didn’t quite
meet my eyes, and something twisted inside me, because I had a
feeling everything had somehow changed and I didn’t understand any
of it.
    Georgia
moved past me before pausing in front of her brother. I couldn’t
see her face but Matt’s expression was fierce.
    “ He’s
trying to tell you that you matter to him. That you matter to the
team and he sure as hell doesn’t want anyone to screw that up. He’s
trying to tell you that whatever this is between us won’t work and
maybe you should listen to him.”
    Okay,
what the hell was happening? When had everything gone to
shit?
    “ That
doesn’t tell me anything.” I said roughly. “Georgia, what the
fuck?”
    “ No,” she
answered