Page 53 of Against the Clock

I’ll be thinking about it all day.

“That looks fucking perfect.” My voice comes out husky. “How about being late to work?”

She laughs, arching a brow at me, then sobers, biting her lower lip. It’s not a sexy look, but one that makes me sit all the way up.

“What’s wrong?”

“Is this…” She gestures between us with the sweater dress in her hand. It flaps wildly, and I look from her to it and back again. “Is this thing between us, is this just about sex?”

“What?” I’m taken aback. Completely. Wildly. “Shit, Kelsey, no. No. Did I make you think that? No.” I shake my head emphatically.

“I mean, we had one date. Then we had sex. Then we had phone sex. Then you show up in the middle of the night…”

Fuck.

“Kelsey, no.” I get out of bed, unable to keep my distance from her, even though maybe I should. Maybe I shouldn’t be running to hold her, running to comfort her, to dissuade her from this notion. “This is not about sex for me. Though, honestly, that was amazing, and I would very, very much like to do it again.”

She stares up at me with big brown eyes, her hair waving around her face, half of it still up in a bun, half of it falling out everywhere. It’s messy and perfect and I want to mess it up even more.

“Kelsey, I can have sex with anyone.”

“Is that right?” She juts her chin out, the hand with the dress in it on her hip now.

“That didn’t come out right,” I backtrack. “To answer your question, no. This isn’t about sex. I like you. I want to get to know you. I liked… learning more about you last night. I liked holding you last night, feeling you fall asleep in my arms. I loved waking up to you this morning.”

The frosty expression on her face warms slightly. “Yeah?”

“Hell yeah,” I say. My lips quirk to the side and I rub the stubble on my jaw. “I tell you what. I want to see you tonight. I want to see you all week. I want to spend time with you.” I pause, then ask the question I’ve hung all my hopes on. “Do you want to spend time with me?”

She glances down, and my heart drops.

But when she looks up at me, that ghost of a smile has turned into a full-fledged grin. “Yeah. Yeah, I would like that.”

“Okay. So we won’t have sex this week.” My balls are already pissed about this plan, but fuck it. “We won’t have sex until I’ve convinced you that I’m here for you. I won’t have sex with you again until you’re begging me to touch you.”

Her throat bobs, pupils dilating.

“What if I want to have sex tonight?”

I swallow a groan because fuck, please, I want that, too.

“If that’s what you want.” I shrug one shoulder. Bad idea. That hurt.

“What if I don’t want to have sex for three months?”

“Then I will be masturbating to my memories of you for three months,” I say bluntly. “But I will respect what you want, for however long you want. We didn’t start this off… traditionally, I guess. That doesn’t mean I don’t want it to… be that.” I almost said end traditionally. Because dammit, ever since she joked about planning a wedding last night, then apologized for it, I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head.

I’ve never been the type of guy to date around. Serial monogamist, a former girlfriend called me.

With Kelsey, though, not only do I not see anyone else… I also see a future.

And the future looks good.

“Whatever you want, for as long as you want it,” I tell her, placing my hands on her hips, unable to not touch her, at the very least.

“Sounds kinky,” she says, then laughs.

“If that’s what you’re into.” God, I hope it’s not three months. My balls are going to shrivel up into tiny little raisins. RIP my balls.

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