Page 10 of Due South

Evans has the best surprised face. It makes me want to rub him behind the ears. “Or what?”

“Well…”

Oh god, oh god. Now what?Way to go, Lucy, biting off so much more than you can chew.But I can do this. If I can do this with anyone, it would be Evans, because he’s not going to laugh at me if I mess it up, and who knows, he may even be game. I blame some of it on sleep-deprivation-induced lunacy, but I get up my nerve to say it.

“Or maybe we could do it again. But, you know, better. More.”

“I don’t know if I could—” Evans’s mouth snaps shut, and this look of incredible concentration comes over his face. I know I shouldn’t interrupt when he looks like that, but I desperately want to encourage him not to think too hard about this.

“What if you…weren’t you?”

He starts, but then it seems as though the sun comes up and shines on his face. “You mean like pretend?”

“Yeah. Pretend. Like we could still be Lucy and Evans, but braver.”

“Bolder.”

My breath speeds up, and I bite my lip. “Yeah. Sexier.”

His mouth drops open, and I want him to kiss me again. Badly. I take a step forward and he doesn’t back up. So I take another step and then another until I’m so close I could touch him, kiss him. And since we made a pact, I go for it. Slowly, in case he changes his mind between now and when I can get on tiptoe and press my lips against his, but he still doesn’t move and then I do it. Place my hands on his chest, feel his pecs under the soft cotton of his button-down shirt, clutch the fabric between my fingers before I lean forward and kiss him.

I didn’t get to enjoy it before. His lips are soft but firm, and the way they move against mine—gentle but insistent and then more aggressively—it’s amazing and I want to do it forever.

When I’m about to moan into his mouth, he grips my biceps and pushes me away slightly, but doesn’t let go.

“You said more. Like more kissing or more other stuff? What else can I do, Lucy?”

Oh. My mind races with the possibilities. Everything. He could do everything.

“Anything.”

He raises a challenging eyebrow, and the amorphous desire that’s been filling me finds an object to attach itself to. How have I never noticed Evans is kind of handsome? He is. Dark brown eyes I could get lost in, the shadow of stubble defining his jaw, and short reddish-brown hair that should look messy but reads as boyishly mussed.

“Anything?”

“Well, don’t hit me. I don’t think I’d like that.” I wouldn’t usually feel as though I’d have to make that particular disclaimer, but after what we watched, it seems like a good idea.

He shakes his head. “I won’t hit you, Lucy.”

“But you liked…you liked watching India get hit.”

He flushes beet red again, but then his face screws up as though he’s considering. “I think I liked the watching. And how much she liked it. You know—you know she liked it, right? He wasn’t hurting her. Well, he was but she—”

“Yeah.” I’ve heard about people who enjoy pain, and now I’ve seen it for myself: my boss, the masochist.

“So I wouldn’t do it. If you didn’t want me to. It’s not hot if you’re not into it. But I think you liked the watching too. Didn’t you?”

His brows draw together and inch up his forehead before he looks pointedly to where my chest is heaving, and it ratchets the burn in my cheeks higher. Yes, I’d liked the watching.

I nod tightly, wanting to tell him, but too embarrassed by it to say it out loud.

“What did you like the most?” he asks, moving his hands to my waist. The simple touch weakens my knees to the extent that I think I might swoon. “Did you like it when he pulled her hair?”

I lick my lips and nod again, because yes… I’d wondered what it might be like to have someone thread their fingers through my hair and hold. Not pull hard enough to hurt, but exert some force? I think so. And even if not, the expression on her face… I want someone to make me feel that way. If hair pulling could do that, then yes, I’d be willing to give it a shot.

“Put her on her knees?”

The wordyessings in my head, because yes, I had. But I can’t quite get the words from my brain to my mouth. They keep getting hung up on everything I’ve been told my whole life. That sex is only appropriate inside the bonds of marriage and I needed to set a good example because girls have more self-control than boys. How my pastor told me, “I know you don’t mean it, but boys have urges when it comes to girls like you. If you want to be spreading the message of God, you need to help these men by covering up any temptation. They’re not trustworthy.”

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