Curve Ball Read Online Free

him, in a cold and deadly voice. And to his credit, he does just that – despite how awkward it is to achieve. He has to get really close to me to shake, because now my hands and arms are glued to my body.
    It must be akin to greeting a T-Rex.
    Plus, he’s still staring at the place my boobs were. Only now, he’s staring while his face turns a rather unfamiliar shade of red. It’s not an embarrassed colour, as my face always is. It’s more of a sort of – excited flush. Like on Christmas morning when you know you’re getting something good, and you’re just so giddy at the thought of ripping those presents open …
    God, I hope he’s not giddy at the thought of ripping me open.
    He can’t be giddy at the thought of ripping me open. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. A moment ago he was talking about his fear of jiggling flesh avalanches, and that’s definitely what’s going to happen if he removes my clothes. It’d be like yelling the words to Staying Alive halfway up Mount Everest.
    Though I accept it’s weird that he seems unable to make sentences, currently. This is his best effort:
    ‘Um … what … were … words?’
    And call me crazy, but it lacks a few things. Like sense, and structure, and meaning.
    ‘Huh?’
    The second he sees my disbelieving expression – nose wrinkled, eyes wide, the works – he snaps out of this daze he’s sunk into. But by that point, it’s a bit too late. His big, hearty laugh sounds hollow; his waving hand like a gesture he thinks he should make.
    But he doesn’t really believe in it. And he follows it with this:
    ‘Who knows? Come on, let’s go back to the boat.’
    I confess I don’t want to go back to the boat with this Steven. I’m even more afraid of him than I was of the Terminator version. He’s too big and boisterous, even though he was already pretty enormous in those departments, and everything seems calculated to cover something over. At one point, as we’re walking through a street that looks like something out of Victorian England, he actually puts one massive arm around me and squeezes . He squeezes so fiercely I don’t think the Spanish Victorians would approve.
    Hell, I don’t approve.
    My heart is still hammering really hard, and I’ve no idea why.

Chapter Two
    I know I should feel better about everything. And yet somehow, I feel worse. I’m used to put-downs and veiled insults, and numbing myself to all of them. I’m not in the least bit used to weirdly solicitous behaviour, of the kind he is now exhibiting.
    He keeps putting his arm around me. And when he’s not putting his arm around my shoulders or my waist or disturbingly much lower than my waist, he’s saying nice things about me. Of course, most of the time he fails at the nice things – I’m fairly sure “your hair is really big today” isn’t a compliment – but the point is he’s trying. The really insane point is that Steven Stark, owner of a fart machine, is really trying .
    And I just don’t know what to do with that. I feel like I should be nice back, but everything I think of would only make it seem as though I fancy him. You can’t tell a handsome man that his eyebrows are amazing, because the first thing he’ll do is assume you have an enormous crush on him.
    Lord, I don’t want Steven to think I have an enormous crush on him.
    So instead, I go with awkward silences and loads of blushing, which is probably only making everything worse. He keeps looking flummoxed, like he’s failing at complimenting me, and that’s why I don’t know how to respond.
    And so he tries harder. He tries really hard. I’m starting to dissolve under the pressure of his impossible trying. Over dinner, he actually strokes my hair back from my face . Though naturally, I’m not sure that’s what he’s done, at first. It’s like with the apology – I suspect it’s just something else, masquerading as a tender sort of touch. Really, he found a spider in