Page 103 of Mr. Wicked

Did I want to keep setting myself up to hurt like this?

Did I want to give my body to someone who admitted out loud—whether it was a lie or not—that we were having meaningless sex?

When I knew that after a year’s time, I would ache even harder than I was right now?

Still, there was a chance things could go the way I wanted, that the risk would pay off, and Grayson would come around and choose us.

If that happened, if this man finally loved me, it would be the best thing I’d ever experienced in my life.

He grazed my nipple, rubbing the hard peak. “Feels like you are game.” When he pinched it, the tiniest moan accidentally escaped my lips. “Sounds like you are too.”

A wave of emotion catapulted through my chest.

He was seeking a reaction.

If I showed him how much this conversation hurt, he would know what kind of control he had over me.

Therefore, I couldn’t react the way I wanted to, but I could give him all the sass.

“If you hadn’t fucked me so hard last night, that answer would probably be yes.” I lifted his hand off my body, the same way he’d done to my arms in front of the fridge, and placed it on his crotch. “This girl needs a little time-out, so you and Mr. Wicked down there can get well acquainted today.”

“Too bad. Morning sex is my favorite.” He refilled his glass. “I’m assuming you get what I’m telling you? That you’re not going to get attached to me and you can handle that this is just sex?”

He couldn’t help himself, he just had to keep digging.

But I still had yet to answer his question.

“Or should I stay far away from you?” he asked after a long pause.

No strings was impossible. So was unemotional.

Two parallel lives with no physical intersection. That was what I should have wanted.

But I wanted Grayson.

My body wanted him.

And I wanted him any way I could have him.

Because I knew, I felt, I was positive that at some point, that shield would drop.

No matter how many times he warned how our story was going to end, I wanted an epilogue.

One that I’d written.

One that I’d fantasized about.

And I wouldn’t give up.

I wouldn’t quit on him the way his mother had. He needed to know, to feel, to see that I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Depends how nice you are to me,” I told him. “If you’re a dick, Mr. Good Time will have to keep it in his pants. But if you play nice, then maybe I will too.”

This wasn’t going to be easy.

Maybe I’d regret my decision when I was constantly searching for signs and gestures, my romantic mind turning them into moments of meaning when that simply wasn’t the case.

Or maybe we’d become everything I’d ever wanted.

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