Not My Match

by Madden-Mills, Ilsa

  “You okay?”

  I throw a hand up over my back. “Right as rain. Need to sleep.” And a cold shower.

  I’m breathing hard, leaning back against the door, when the knock comes.

  “What?” I say through the wood.

  “Did I . . . did I . . . we shouldn’t have watched that. It’s my fault.”

  “No,” I say as I turn to face the door, feeling like an idiot as I talk to it. “It was really good . . . cinematography. Their faces . . . the sheets and pillows and stuff.”

  She pauses. “Thank you for rescuing me from the weatherman.”

  I open the door and stare at her. Her blue eyes are wide and starry. “Yeah, whatever.”

  She’s so . . .

  Dangerous.

  “Good night,” she says with a soft smile and walks back into the den, where I hear another orgasm.

  “Night,” I mutter and shut the door.

  Chapter 15

  GISELLE

  Later, I head to my bedroom and pile up in my bed, headphones on, laptop open on my bare legs. I showered and changed into a blue lace camisole and a pair of booty shorts, fluffed up my pillows, and got to work. My story burns to be written. You’d think after finishing my movie, I’d be inspired for some off-the-charts sex scenes, but I’m deep into Kate sneaking like a ninja into the prison where Vureck is being held to rescue him after their ship was attacked. My story isn’t just a love story between total opposites; it’s the story of Kate figuring out her true self, a girl who’s powerful in her own right, who is now the one to save him. Her dream of going back to Earth has faded; all that matters is getting back her man—er, alien.

  My fingers tap away at about ninety words per minute, Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack reverberating in my ears.

  My ankle itches, and I give it an absent flick with my foot, tossing the covers off, still typing.

  Kate uses her thin blade that Vureck gave her as a present to pick the lock to his cage. One of the lizard men wakes up from the sedative she put in his food and pounces on her—just as a tickle brushes against my leg, and I shake it off. The sensation prickles again, against my thigh, and I huff, look down, and . . . scream. Headphones are ripped off, and my laptop crashes to the floor as my hands fling around at what surely must be a million spiders in my bed. A brown eight-legged body jumps off the sheet and dives deep inside the covers.

  Devon jerks the door open, hair soaked, body wet, a white towel knotted around his waist. My mouth opens, the scary arachnid of death forgotten. His chest—oh Lord, I’ve never seen his naked chest—is a work of art, the skin a light-tan color, sleek and muscled, his pectorals sharply defined, the oblique abdominals creating a distinct roll of muscles that tapers to the V at his hip bone. My eyes bulge. I’ve never seen a real six-pack on a guy, except online and in movies. A bead of water tracks down his throat, skating down the center of his chest, past the sparse hair, and right into more hair, at the top of his towel. Elena calls that a goody trail, and I agree. There’s goodness in every part of him. He isn’t beefy like some football players. He’s a runner, all hard muscle and power, honed to outlast, outdistance, outperform—

  “Giselle! What’s wrong?”

  I sputter. “You look . . .” Like a dream. “Wet.” I swallow.

  He marches in—one hand on the terrible, terrible towel—and paces around the room. I check out his ass and back—oh wow, back muscles for days, and if I was thinking clearly, I could name every single one. Think clearly! His lats under his arm are toned and tight, the rhomboids of his upper back tense and ready to fight.

  A furry thing jumps on my foot, and I scream again, hands waving in front of my face. The bed bounces as I hop down to the floor—what took me so long?—landing with a thud, wincing at the ankle that still isn’t right. My voice is breathless, and I’m not sure it has to do with the spider tormenting me or the fact that seeing Devon naked is a very bad thing for my vow to keep us just friends.

  Devon shakes his head at me, his lips twitching.

  “What?” I grouse.

  “It’s a tiny spider,” he replies, eyebrow arched.

  I cross my arms. “The giant spider has been crawling on me for several minutes! It jumped at me! You saw how fast it moved. Zero to sixty in a heartbeat. And now it’s in my bed, and you have to find it and kill it. Meanwhile, I will be sleeping on the couch, because there’s no way I’m getting back in that bed with a monster loose . . .” I stop, glaring at him as he chuckles. He shakes his head, his chest rumbling with laughter.

  “Didn’t know you’d go berserk . . . over a tiny, tiny . . .” He wipes at his eyes. “Giselle, baby, you’re killing me.”

  After snatching a pillow off the bed, I double-check it for spiders (clear) and clutch it to my chest. “I saw hair on its legs!”

  He throws his head back for more laughing, and I smack him with the pillow.

  He isn’t fazed, cackling more, so I whack him again. He holds his hand out to tell me to stop but moves fast, grabbing the other pillow. He hits me on my torso.

  “Did you even check it for spiders?”

  “No, and I bet the little guy is right on top.” His eyes flare as he looks at my chest. “Giselle, don’t move.”

  There’s been a spider crawling on me, and he tells me not to move. The man needs to rethink who I am. I scream and brush at my chest frantically, heart pounding. Not seeing anything, I look back up, and he’s grinning. “Psych.”

  My hands fist. “Oh, you . . . you . . .” I jump at him, shoving him with my pillow, and he falls down on my bed. I expect him to get up, but he just lies there, the rumble of his laughter making my lips curve. I like seeing him like this, relaxed and easy and so beautiful. His dark hair is slicked back, his eyebrow piercing glinting under the lights, the butterflies and roses on his arms—then a brown monster appears and sits on one of the blooms, right below his right shoulder.

  Keeping my voice calm and even—oh my God, you have a creature of death on you!—I lean over and stare him straight in the eyes. “Devon. Listen to me. The tiny spider is on your right arm.”

  On your biceps I’d like to lick when the monster is gone.

  “It’s as big as a quarter, with multiple eyeballs—eight to be precise, arranged in three rows—and sharp fangs. I think it’s a wolf spider. Agile hunters with poisonous bites when provoked, which we have done. Those bites hurt and sometimes require hospitalization. I know of a case where a healthy grown man nearly lost his foot from a bite.”

  He freezes, searching my face. “No joke?”

  “Dead serious.”

  His face loses its mirth. “You’re messing with me.”

  I shake my head slowly as I lean over him. “You know I don’t lie.”

  His chest twitches, as if he’s going to move, and I hold my hand up for him to stop.

  “Not so funny when it’s on you, is it?” I smirk.

  He glares at me. “Kill it.”

  I rear back. “I like you at my mercy. In your towel. What if the little fellow hops on your towel or under it? Now that would be interesting.” I let out a dark chuckle.

  His throat moves. “Giselle, come on, baby doll, beautiful girl, kill the motherfucking spider.”

  “I can’t! I wanted you to do the dirty work. I don’t want near it.” I pause. “Plus, it didn’t bite me, and she’s just trying to live, and she probably has babies—”

  He groans, his eyes darting to his side, but from the angle he’s at, he can’t see. “Oh, so now it’s ‘save the spiders’ in here. Five minutes ago, you wanted me to crush her—how do you know it’s a female?”

  I take a step closer to him, sliding closer as I bend over him. “Because she’s carrying her babies.”

  “Are you telling me there’s, um, like lots of spiders on me?”

  “Hmm.” I grab my phone from the nightstand.

  “This isn’t the time to check your Insta,” he growls, glaring at me.

  I snap a pic of him sprawled out
on my bed. That’s for later. I peek at him from behind my cell. “Since you can’t move, do you mind if I move the towel a little, just to see—”

  “Lethal spider. With babies. Lots of venom. Football season. Must be healthy. Towel is not important right now, Giselle!”

  I sigh. “Spiders have an acute sense of touch, by the way—it’s what the hairy legs are for—so don’t move, m’kay?”

  “Giselle, are you screwing with me? I can’t feel anything. Is she really there?”

  “Shh, let me read up on this,” I murmur as I quickly check Google. “Yep, I was right. ‘Wolf spiders carry their young on the dorsal side of their abdomen for weeks, even after hatching. No other spider is known to do this.’ Which means we can’t kill her, Devon. Regardless of how she tormented me, she was probably just hunting food for her babies and got tangled in the sheets. We have to get her out of here uninjured. No telling how many fanged spiderlings she has. Hundreds.”

  His nose flares.

  “Okay, I have an idea.” I dart out of the room, and he begs me to come back.

  “Not laughing now, are ya?” I call back and hear an answering growl.

  After grabbing a large bowl from the cabinet, I dig through the kitchen drawer for the longest kitchen utensil I can find, snatching a two-foot wooden spatula that I bet he uses on a grill. Perfect.

  “How you holding up?” I say as I come back in the room.

  “I felt something. Did she move?” he says in a wary tone.

  “Nope. Still there. You’re just paranoid.” I creep closer.

  He bites his lower lip as he eyes the spatula. “Are you going to hit me with that?”

  “Of course not. I’m going to swoop her into the bowl.”

  He takes a breath, slow and steady. “Sweep her away from me, not toward me. If it gets on my face . . .”

  “Trust me.”

  “Trust the girl who screamed so loud I’m shocked the police aren’t here? Okay, okay, sounds good.”

  “I think Cindy likes you. She might be sleeping.”

  He rolls his eyes. “Fucking Cindy? Stop trying to figure out the damn spider, and get it off me. Please.”

  “I like it when you say please.”

  “Please, please, get Cindy off me,” he groans.

  I inch in closer on the foot of the bed, perpendicular to Devon. “I want something in return.”

  “Just ask,” he bites out.

  “I want to see you naked—not now, because you shouldn’t move, but later, after the rescue.”

  His eyes find mine and lock, the pupils dilating in a rush, pushing out the forest green to nearly black. And his voice is thick when it comes. “Deal.”

  Steeling myself, and it’s easy because I get a treat at the end, I hold out the spatula a few feet from Cindy and swing, knocking her as gently as I can. She sails off his shoulder and straight to the floor. I grab the glass bowl and place it on top of her. “I just scored,” I say and look back at Devon and grin.

  He gets down on the floor with me, and we stare at the bowl. “She’s not that big.”

  “I disagree.”

  He huffs. “Do you really know of a man who almost lost his foot?”

  “Um . . . ,” I murmur, standing up.

  He stands with me, a steely glint in his gaze. “You lied.”

  I hold my index and thumb close together. “Just a little. I can, you know, in times of danger or a prank. In my defense, the man did go to the hospital.”

  “This whole time, I could have just knocked her off and been done with it.”

  “Maybe, but I wasn’t lying about the babies. Those are real, and I don’t know how they haven’t all scattered, considering the beating poor Cindy has taken.”

  “And now you feel sorry for the scary spider.”

  “But, but . . .” I laugh, clutching my sides. “You were scared! You were frozen!”

  He gives me a glare as he bends down, and how in the world has his towel stayed on this entire time? I guess it’s a very large towel. He nudges the lip of the bowl until it touches one of her legs, and she crawls along the side. He scoops up the container, and she slides to the bottom. He walks out of the room, and I follow him, soaking in the back muscles, the pert rise of the towel where his ass is—

  “Are you ogling my backside?”

  “Yes,” I chirp as he grins and opens the door to the penthouse and stalks to the elevator.

  “Are you going to take her out nearly naked?” I hiss, getting in the elevator with him.

  “Yep.” He pauses, sweeping his eyes over me before looking down and hitting the button for the garage. “You aren’t dressed either.”

  I cross my arms, hoping to hide my nipples poking through my cami. “We’re on a mission. Clothing can wait.” And I really do want Cindy and family gone. I have to see it for myself.

  The elevator stops, and we get off and walk near one of the concrete columns. I watch Devon as he sets the bowl down on its side, and Cindy eases out, slow and steady, then darts under Red.

  “No!” I call out. “Not my car!”

  Devon grins. “Your car?”

  I feel a blush rising on my cheeks. “I love you, you know. Red is incredible, and I can’t thank you enough. Everyone stares at me on the highway. I don’t drive her fast and always clean out my mess—”

  The rest of my words halt as Devon moves like a blur in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. “What did you say?”

  I lick my lips, replaying my words telling him how much I appreciate him loaning me his car, which reminds me that my car is probably ready for me to pick up and has been for a while, only I haven’t had time to get it—or maybe I haven’t wanted to. Devon is still staring at me, and I know what I said—I do, totally—but it makes my heart dip and my legs shake, and I don’t know why I said those words. I shouldn’t have, because it wasn’t like it was meant to be taken seriously—just words that slipped out, that are currently causing him to frown. I need to take a step back, mentally, and tiptoe my way through this, because if one little comment said in jest makes him wear that horrible hesitant “What am I doing?” look on his face, then I never, never want him to know how I feel.

  “I just meant, thank you for letting me drive your car,” I say quietly.

  His throat bobs, his Adam’s apple jumping up and down as he swallows thickly, his grip on me loosening before his hands finally fall to his sides. He stares at me—one, two, three, four—then drops his eyes to the floor. No level-five gaze here, just a man who is looking for a place to run.

  “You sure that’s all you meant?”

  “Yes.” Succinct and clear, my voice holds as I resist the urge to not gasp out in . . . pain? Yes, pain.

  He gives me a final look and heads to the elevator. We don’t say anything the entire way up, me on one side, him on the other, his countenance set in hard lines, a baffled, unhappy—yes, definitely unhappy—expression on his face. And I put it there, after the fun of Cindy. My words dug under his skin, confusing him and putting another barrier between us, because let’s be honest: the man wants me. I know he does because of those long gazes, the soft touches, the way he kissed me, the way he held me tonight at the club. It’s more than just hormones, but he doesn’t want to want me, and that knowledge sits in my stomach like a boulder.

  I wish I had more experience with men, that I knew the right thing to say to make my words not bother him. The scary part is that part of me meant those big words, and as that realization steals over me, I realize that I can’t, I just can’t fall in love with a man who wants to only be friends with me; I can’t add it to my list of failures that keep piling up. Devon doesn’t have the emotional capacity to return how I feel. No, he keeps that hidden piece of him locked away in his castle, with the drawbridge up, guards around the perimeter. People leave him. Because he served up his heart to Hannah on a silver platter, and she rejected him, hurt him when he was young and had a little bit of faith in love—

  “Are you going
to sleep on the elevator?” Devon’s voice breaks into my thoughts. I shake my head and step off, following him back to the penthouse.

  He comes to a halt in the kitchen, his back still to me, the lines of his stance tense and drawn, as if he’s battling some internal struggle. Well, that’s me, I guess. My fault.

  “You don’t have to carry through with our agreement to get naked,” I say curtly as I cross my arms. I’m annoyed and hurt.

  He turns around, hands clenched.

  Well? my eyes say.

  He stalks over to me, getting into my space, and I walk backward, my hands touching the wall for balance. His head dips, and his green eyes rake over me, lingering on my cami, taking me in all the way to my “Really a Waitress” red toes that Myrtle painted for me when she stayed over. “The problem is, Giselle, I want to be naked. I want to be all over you, inside you. I want to make you helpless underneath me, own every inch of your skin, until you smell like me, until you don’t know where you start and I begin. I’m itching, my hands, my fucking hands . . .” The palms of his hands slam the wall on either side of me, caging me in. “Want to be in your hair; they want to strip you down and make you scream my name when you come. Then, I want to do it all over again.”

  My lashes flutter.

  “Tell me how you really feel,” I gasp out.

  One of his hands slaps at the wall, jarring and loud, but I don’t flinch, because it’s Devon, and he’d never hurt me. Low and harsh, his voice is broken, as if dragged over rocks. “This is how I feel. I’m laying it out for you so you know the truth. Fucking is just sex to me, Giselle. No feelings. None of that emotional yearning stuff from your movie. That’s who I am. Is that what you want? One night with someone who won’t care about you the next day? Someone like a guy from your app?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say sharply.

  “Isn’t it? That’s what it will be with me. I’d fuck you and walk away.”

  My heart squeezes. “From me?”

  “Yes,” he growls, running his nose up my throat, his teeth nipping at my ear. His scent wraps around me, thick and heady. “Decide. Now. Do you want to fuck?”

  That dirty word, from his mouth, directed at me, sets me alight like a match to fuel. Tremors start at my feet and work their way up until I can’t form a coherent thought.