Page 47 of The Dating Pact

“Scares the shit out of me,” I conceded, holding the smoke in my lungs.

She inspected me for a few seconds, but I didn’t know what she was looking for, if anything at all. She eventually rolled her head along the back of her chair and accepted the joint when I passed it to her. “What exactly do you want out of this? You’re going on dates to find someone to have sex with, right?” Her tone bordered on waspish, and again, I ignored the voice in the back of my head hinting that it was because of me. “This girl is basically throwing herself at you, but you’re not into it?”

I swallowed thickly. “I don’t know. I guess I’m not into her.”

We each had one more puff before she stubbed it out, and I didn’t think I was high enough to answer her when she asked, “Are you afraid of having sex with her or all the kinky stuff she brought up?”

I rubbed at my beard. I hadn’t been afraid of sex with Brooke, so I couldn’t place the niggling feeling whenever I tried to imagine doing it with Melissa or anyone else. I didn’t want to analyze it at the moment, so I said, “The kinks, I guess.”

She waited for me to go on, folding her hand across her stomach, over her tank top that clung to her body. I let my attention coast down to her legs, tanned and nearly naked with the minuscule cotton shorts she wore. I didn’t have a problem picturing myself touching her there, kissing her, making myself at home between her thighs.

I wasn’t scared of that at all.

“Do you want to try it?” she asked, hauling my focus back up to her face, and it took me a moment to wrap my mind around our conversation.

“Try what? The shibari? The masks?”

“Yeah. All of it.”

“I don’t know. Might be uncomfortable with someone I don’t know,” I said, speaking the thought I hadn’t realized I’d buried under all my hesitation. “Have you ever tried that stuff?”

“Have I tried shibari? No. But I’ve been handcuffed before.”

I extended my legs out in front of me, pinpricks of sensation running along them. I kept my eyes on Brooke’s, not letting them linger anywhere else but her gaze. So I didn’t picture her wrists handcuffed to a bed with another guy over her. Instead, I tortured myself by asking, “What about masks?”

That had her tipping her head to the side, her finger idly tracing shapes on the arm of her Adirondack chair. Her tongue slipped out, wetting her lips, leading to a suggestive smile.

“What?” I asked, sitting forward.

“I read romance books.”

“Oh. Okay.” This was a new tidbit of information, and I didn’t know how it had never come up in conversation before.

“So, no, I’ve never tried, but it’s in some of my books.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I read dark romance, and sometimes some of the guys will wear a mask and…” She trailed off, her eyes focusing on a point over my shoulder. “It might be fun to be chased by a bad guy…and be caught…and…” Her cheeks blazed red, and she cleared her throat before she met my gaze again. “You know?”

I shook my head, images bombarding my brain. “No, I don’t know.”

But yeah, I could picture it. Brooke running. Adrenaline pumping. Me catching her. Wrapping my arms around her waist. Lifting her off the ground. My lips on her neck. My cock hard against her back as she begged me.

I willed my blood to stop rushing, for my dick to get the message to settle down.

But Brooke clearly didn’t need to send her body the same messages because she kept right on going. “It’s kinda hot, thinking about it being rough.”

It was the marijuana. That was it. The reason I asked, “Rough? Like how?”

She crossed her legs, and my eyes went right to the point between them, where her gray cotton shorts were trapped. “I guess a little hair-pulling. Maybe a little choking.”

“Choking?” I snapped my eyes up to where she placed her hand at her throat.

“Yeah, but not hard, only a little pressure. And some dirty talk.”

“Dirty talk?” I croaked. “Like what?”

She laughed. “God, Jude, don’t you know anything?”

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