Page 26 of After All

“So, we pretty much laid out how this was going to go at the hospital, right?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Keeping his eyes closed was kind of working. He couldn’t see all that gorgeous skin and those tempting curves. But he couldfeelher. And smell her. And his whole body hardened anyway. He heard her drop her shoes one by one onto the floor and imagined her with her legs curled under her, sitting sideways facing him. That meant her bare legs with those stockings were rightthere…

He wasn’t going to survive two weeks.

Not without throwing her down and taking her over and over and—

“You want to play house, right? Take this chance to show me how wonderful a relationship could be. Tempt me to make it real and long-term.”

He rolled his head and opened his eyes. Yeah, she’d caught on to that at the hospital all right. It had seemed like a great plan. He wanted to date her. Hell, he wanted to live with her. So why not force her into it?

He gave a little laugh at that thought. Very romantic. “Yeah, okay, I thought this would give you a taste of what you’re missing.”

She nodded. “And you figured out that I also intend to use these two weeks to seduce you, right?”

He took a deep breath. Yeah, of course she did. Hell, she used every minute they were together to try to do that. “And how would that be different than every other time we’re within ten feet of one another?”

She smiled. “Oh, you’ll see how it’s different.”

Yeah, he was a dead man. He was either going to die of lack of blood to his brain, or because he took Peyton to bed and couldn’t move for food or water afterward.

“So this is a game of chicken—we both bring it on and see who gets their way?” he asked.

She smiled. “Pretty much. I mean, if you’re not smart enough to avoid playing chicken or truth-or-date with me, then you deserve the consequences.”

Well, she had a point.

“Think you’re a tough girl, huh?” She was. On the surface. He was sure that there had never been a dare Peyton hadn’t taken with a big old loud “hell yeah”. But she wasn’t totally tough. There were moments when he caught glimpses of what he could have sworn was wistfulness—like she wanted so much more than she was letting herself want. “You think you can be with me for two weeks and then want things to go back to how they were?”

She wet her lips and shrugged. “I think that the sex is going to be so good thatyouwon’t be able to go back to how things were.”

He focused on her mouth. Her sassy, sexy mouth that he wanted to see smiling, wanted to hear saying things like “you make me so happy”, and that he wanted tofeeldoing…

“For two weeks, I’m going to sell the relationship idea, you’re going to sell the sex idea, and we’re going to see who caves first?” he asked.

She nodded her head slowly, her long black hair falling forward and brushing against the upper curve of her breasts, half of which were peeking out of the deep V in the front of the dress. “May the best man, or woman, win.”

He studied her. Her cheeks were a little pink, her pupils were wide. She was excited.

Hell, he was too.

He knew he had no prayer of resisting a Peyton seduction for two weeks. But he thought maybe she didn’t have a chance of resisting the things he wanted either. Not with a constant, steady application of things like simple fun and sweetness. Normalcy. Comfort. Typical couple stuff. Typicaloutside of the bedroomcouple stuff. He knew that she worried about him being overprotective and demanding of her time and attention. So, this was the perfect chance to show her that they could both have their own space, their own interests, time apart—and yet still be crazy about each other.

No, he thought a second later—crazy was not a good word to use.

Her mother’s mental illness was no joking matter. He didn’t make light of it, and knew when Peyton did, it was a defense mechanism. But still, he needed to not do anything that would call to mind her mom and dad.

Sweet and fun and comfortable and normal,he reminded himself. That’s what he was concentrating on. Even as he was all too aware of the perfect pair of breasts only a few inches below his mouth.

God, he was going to be so easy for her.

“Okay, but you have to actuallytry,” he said. “Every time you do something sexy, I do something normal and you have to go with it.”

She laughed. “Normal?”

“Sweet, romantic, regular couple stuff,” Scott said firmly.

“Regular couples don’t do sexy?” Peyton asked. “No wonder I’ve never wanted to be one.”

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