Page 140 of Charming Deception

“What’s the dirtiest thing that happens besides him taking her virginity?” he demands.

“Um.” I almost choke on my wine. I swallow and cough a little, clearing my windpipe. “Let’s see…” My mind races through dirty scene after dirty scene as I wonder if I can cough out the words. “Well. Okay. He fucks her up the ass and then licks his bloody come from her thighs afterward.”

Yup. Coughed that out.

Jameson stares at me. His lips part. He’s breathing soundlessly, but so deeply, his chest rises and falls with a shudder—kind of like a dragon smoldering just before it seizes the princess.

And eats her alive?

My whole body flushes. “Should I just die now?”

“That’s—”

“Unsanitary.”

“That wasn’t even close to the direction my mind went, but okay.”

I shrug. “I know it is, but I don’t care. They’re in the wild. It’s just books.”

But they’re not just books to me.

And he has to have noticed that by now.

My feverish writing in every free moment I’ve got, curled over my laptop as I zone out everything around me. How many times has he tucked a blanket around me or left a cup of coffee next to me without a word when he finds me tucked into some corner of his house or his yard or his greenhouse like that?

“There are other scenes, too,” I offer, my voice husky with the lust I’m really trying to keep at bay. “Like, ones you might find dirtier than that. I guess it’s subjective. But there are reasons they’re dirty. I don’t think sex should just be a cheap thrill on the page. I think sex reveals character and how people feel about one another, when it’s done right.”

He’s still staring at me. And those words hang over us.

When it’s done right.

We aren’t even doing it at all.

Because him.

Because he doesn’t want to.

Not yet.

For… whatever reason.

A reason he still hasn’t quite articulated to me.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” he says.

“It’s okay.”

“It was rude. The whole story is good. I’m not obsessed with the sex scenes or anything.”

“Neither am I.”

We stare at each other.

And finally, I crack. I laugh.

He shakes his head, and holds out his glass with a groan of surrender. “Top me up. I think I have more reading to do tonight.”

I grin and top up his wine.

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