Page 102 of Unwrapping Deviance

It’s a struggle not to blush. To maintain eye contact. By nature, I’ve never been good with being bold. I have moments, little spurts of adrenaline mainly with Daniel and only because I’m so comfortable with him. He’s seen me at my worst. No shower or change of clothes for a week bad. He’s had to force feed me food when the thought of eating exhausted me.

Christian ... unnerves me. He’s too honest, too ... blunt. He knows what to say to both fluster and arouse me and piss me off and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with him.

Fuck, obviously.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it.

“Hey, come back.”

I quickly suck in a breath and drop my gaze. “I’m sorry.”

His thumb brushes my cheek, so much like the way Daniel does when he’s trying to comfort me that my chin jerks up.

He offers me a lopsided grin. “Don’t be. It’s cute the way you vanish in your head sometimes. Makes me curious.”

I have to swallow a few times to get the word out. “Curious?”

For the first time since I met him, Christian hesitates. His dark eyes shift away to somewhere over my head. His fingers drum on the shiny plastic of his helmet.

“What you’re thinking.” He takes my helmet and his and tucks them into the bike’s compartment. “They don’t always seem innocent, and it makes me curious.”

“What did you think when you read my book last night?”

He shuts the lid and faces me. “That I knew you had a filthy side behind all that sweet innocence.”

I stare up at the devastatingly gorgeous man watching me and it strikes me that he’s not wrong. It wasn’t the books that corrupted me. I’ve always been curious. I used to want to try new things with Kalen, but he’d just get fidgety and uncomfortable. Sophie used to tell me Kalen was too boring for me, and I should find someone my speed, and I thought she was saying that because they never got along.

Kalen and Sophie were water and oil. Everything was a fight. Everything ended with them screaming at each other. I was always in the middle, begging them to get along.

I guess they did. They somehow found common ground. According to Sophie, after I caught them in my bed, in my dad’s apartment, they’d found that balance six months ago but didn’t know how to tell me.

Fucking in my bed was apparently the only solution.

“Sweetheart?”

I suck in a breath, startled by the gentle brush of Christian’s finger against my cheek.

“Sorry. I got lost.”

“I see that. You okay?”

I peer up at his concerned expression. I study the tiny furrow between his eyes and the question staring back at me.

“Yeah.” I offer him a smile I don’t think he buys.

But he doesn’t push. He pockets his keys, and his free hand captures mine.

We head off in the direction of the pharmacy. Christian follows. He stays reasonably close by while I have them pull up a refill from a different province. He doesn’t ask questions when I quietly ask the pharmacist how quickly the pill will work because Daniel is still coming out of me and there had been so much semen.

I used to want a family. A big one with four or five kids, but that means more people to infect with the curse. People who would absolutely destroy me if I lost. It would be a tragedy I know I will never get over.

I grab a box of morning after pills to cover the seven days until the birth control kicks in, pay for my items and turn to find Christian watching me with a little frown.

“What?”

His answer is too quick. Dismissive, “Nothing.”

We step back out into the mid-afternoon sun, and I face him.

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