Page 123 of Lady Luck

The heat I found there was so intense that my next step faltered, and I froze.

His eyes traveled down my body as if I were wearing something much more provocative than my Halloween T-shirt and a pair of jeans. He turned fully toward me and leaned back against the booth, gripping the table behind him with both hands, his forearms flexing. He patiently waited for my gaze to travel back to his before he asked, “What’s stopping you from coming over here?”

Apart from the first time we’d been physical with each other—when I’d waited pantsless on his bed after two days of edging via acts of service and lingering kisses—and the blow job, he’d always been the one to initiate anything physical.

After the AJ debacle of last year, there might have still been a tiny nagging voice in the back of my head that said the stakes were higher than I could pay if I were the one to initiate and it went badly.

Because fear wasn’t logical.

It was a mean, short-sighted bitch.

“Tell me.”

“I’m afraid.”

His eyes softened as his head cocked slightly to the side, sending the messy hair I adored over his arched brow—that I also loved. He said nothing, giving me the space to fill—or not fill—with more.

“The thing I want most in the world is to trust this. And I do—most of the time. I just have to psych myself up to be forward. And apparently the two sides of the boldness coin are surprise blow jobs and blurting out that I’m allergic to latex.”

His lips twitched, but he didn’t laugh. I’d never been more thankful for a joke that wasn’t a joke to not land. Vinh had yet to let me gloss over my feelings.

“I have an idea,” he said, pushing off from the table. “Do you have one of your bandanas here?”

Confused, I thought about the basket of laundry Liem had graciously washed at his parents’ house for me midweek. “I do.”

He nodded. “Good.”

“What would you want a—” I stopped midsentence, the meaning clicking into place. “I’m not wearing a blindfold.”

He gently took my face in his hands, my entire field of vision filled with his reassuring gaze. He kissed my forehead, the tip of my nose, and finally my mouth, where he lingered for a moment longer than the others before pulling back and saying the words that changed everything I knew about the world.

“I know. But I will.”

47

VINH

Iclutched the forest-green bandana, the material so well-worn that it was faded and soft to the touch.

I considered this both my penance for how long I’d stared at Bree, my gardener, without her knowledge the first time I’d seen her and an opportunity to build up our trust by letting go of some control.

I wouldn’t let her see my nerves. It would do nothing to help hers, and I wanted this to be as freeing as possible for her.

“You’re not going to ask me to tie you up next, are you?”

I leaned against the bedroom doorjamb, my focus entirely on Bree as she fussed with the bag she’d been living out of for too long. For that alone, I’d insisted she meet with her grandmother tomorrow, which had confirmed my suspicions that Bree hadn’t been planning on going, not wanting to miss a minute of my birthday. She’d finally agreed to go, and to both my disappointment and understanding, insisted that she needed to go alone, saying my presence would only agitate and distract her grandmother.

That didn’t mean I wouldn’t be waiting nearby with my phone out, ready to intervene. I was well and truly over people treating her poorly and getting away with it.

But then I smiled, remembering her recap of Saturday’s events. She was done with it too.

“Vinh?”

I blinked, coming back into the present and recalling her question. “No. I’m interested in trust, not torture.” I pushed off the doorway, grabbed her hand, and pressed it against my chest, right over the heart that she owned. “There is no reality where I’d want to be with you without being able to touch you. To trace your freckles, even if I can’t see them”—I placed my hand between her breasts— “or feel your heart as it races fast as a hummingbird right before you fall over the edge. I won’t give those up. I can’t.”

I held her steel-gray gaze and kept my hand on her chest, willing the words to sink in. We breathed each other's air until I couldn’t stand another moment without her taste. I leaned forward as she did the same, her lips meeting mine in a soft, sweet kiss. She pulled back and traced her hand down my arm to my hand, then took the bandana.

“Sit on the bed?” she asked, nearly breathless.

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