Page 68 of Sleepover

Chapter 32

Elle

We’re done with our main course and we’ve ordered dessert, a molten chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. I’m somewhere near the bottom of my second glass of wine, and he’s been asking me about my writing, and somehow, I find myself telling him about the super-secret divorce book. He listens with typical Sawyer attentiveness, idly running his thumb along the edge of his wine goblet. My eyes follow his fingers, my body softening and heating in response to the caress. You know you’ve got it bad when a guy can get to you by rimming his glass.

“Hattie thinks I should try to get it published, but I don’t really think anyone would be interested.”

He tilts his head. “Why not?”

“It’s pretty hard to get something published. Really competitive. And there are, like, a million divorce self-help books, and there was the whole Eat Pray Love memoir/self-help thing, and now there are a million of those, too.”

“So?” he asks.

“So, I mean, I’m nothing new.”

“So why did Hattie say you should try to get it published?”

I shrug.

He narrows his eyes. “What did she say, Elle?”

He’s pretty scary when he’s stern. And hot.

“She said it made her laugh and that—I guess she thought it would make people feel less alone with the whole thing. Like I was kind of making fun of myself and the situation in a way that was really accessible.”

He raises his eyebrows.

I lift a shoulder. “She’s my best friend. She has to say nice stuff.”

He leans back slightly in his seat and says, “You know, way back when I was first starting to make furniture, I said stuff like that all the time. ‘Oh, yeah, he’s just complimenting it because he’s my dad; she’s just complimenting it because she’s my wife. There’s so much furniture out there, there’s so much repurposed wood furniture out there; what do I have to offer that’s anything new?’ Truth is, you can talk yourself out of anything. It’s not talking yourself out of the stuff that matters that’s the tough part. I think Hattie’s right.”

“Well,” I say. “Maybe so.”

I change the subject. I propose we do “favorites.”

So we do—favorite color, favorite food, favorite movie, pet peeve, that kind of thing. And of course, the longer that goes on, the dirtier it gets.

“Favorite sex position,” Sawyer murmurs.

The candlelight and the deep rumble of his voice are like warm water in my veins, and I luxuriate for a moment before I choose my answer. “I don’t know yet,” I murmur back. “Planning to find out this weekend.”

“In the past,” he coaxes.

I give it some thought. “Maybe this makes me boring, but I like missionary.”

“Not boring.” His gaze pins mine in a way that makes me vividly imagine exactly what it will feel like to have him braced over me, his face inches from mine, as he moves inside me. It’s hard to breathe, which brings another set of memories to the surface.

“What you did to me against the wall outside the bar? That was—” Blood suffuses my face at the memory. “That was probably the most turned on I’ve ever been.”

He sucks in a breath and nails me with another dark look. “Vertical’s good.” His gaze gets far away, and he squints briefly. “I think, like I said the other night, I’d also really like you riding me. You’ve got the sexiest bounce I’ve ever seen—” His eyes drop to indicate exactly what part of me bounces to his specifications—“and I would really enjoy lying back and watching.”

There’s something about Sawyer. Most men, if they said something like that, I’d think it was crass. Sawyer means it. He’s being honest, and it’s hot. And he’s watching me carefully for my reaction. Words, for him, are foreplay.

My breasts tighten in the spotlight of his regard, my nipples beading under the thin lace, front and center, and yes—his eyes darken, noticing.

His gaze lifts, meets mine, and I flush, hot all over.

He smirks, then leans back in his seat. He looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him.

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