Page 58 of After Tonight

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“You okay?”

She turned on the seat to face him. She nodded. “I’m just kind of overwhelmed with wanting to screw your brains out as a thank-you for sticking up for me with my family.”

He gave her a slow smile. “Overwhelmed?”

“I’ve never felt that before.”

He frowned. “You’ve never had someone stick up for you before?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never wanted someone…” But she trailed off and frowned too. “I’m not sure I have, actually.”

“Ry—”

“My family isn’t abusive or anything,” she said quickly. “I don’t think I could make a case at all for having a rough childhood. My mom’s just…” She shrugged. “Critical. She has high standards. We butt heads. But I know she loves me and I love her and…I’m fine. It’s just that I’ve never had anyone say that my flaws are something they like about me.”

Derek stretched his arm across the back of the seat. He tugged on the end of the strand of hair that lay against her shoulder. “They’re not flaws.”

She shrugged her other shoulder because she didn’t want to dislodge his touch. “My bluntness and my seeming inability to do anything traditionally definitely drive people crazy.”

“They drive your mom crazy,” he agreed. “But they’re not flaws.”

She took a breath, feeling more than just her panties getting warmer now. The sweet side of Derek was as addictive as the hot and cocky side. “Thanks.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t have flaws. Those just aren’t them.”

Ah, and there was the guy she knew. But she grinned. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He rotated his finger and wrapped the end of her hair around it. “For one, you don’t listen very well.”

“I don’t?”

“The minute your mom starts talking, you start thinking of all the things she’s saying that are wrong and critical. You don’t hear the other stuff.”

Riley arched her brows. Oh, okay, so this was kind of serious. “Is that right?”

He nodded. “It is. She’s on your ass a lot, I’ll agree, but you don’t hear her saying things like ‘I worry about you’, ‘I want you to be happy’, ‘I want you to make good choices and not just pick the option I’ll hate the most’.”

Riley frowned now. “She doesn’t say that stuff.”

“She does. It’s between the lines, and yeah, it’s mixed up with ‘do you really think you should dye your hair?’ and ‘you could do more with your life,’ but it’s there.”

“Well, that other stuff is way louder and more in focus,” Riley said, feeling her chest tighten.

Derek nodded again. “I know. But you’ve done some dumb stuff, Ry. And she’s your mom. Of course she’s going to worry.”

“Hey.”

He shrugged, unapologetic. “One of the things we have going for us is that we can both be brutally honest, right?”

“You mean, you want permission to keep teasing me about shit like you’ve always done.”

He thought about that for a second. Then nodded, a small smile curling his lips. “Yeah. I guess so. I know it’s pretty easy to fall under my spell when I’m doling out multiple orgasms, but I don’t want you to get soft. I want to be able to tell you when you’re being a brat.”

How had talking about sex gotten so easy so fast with this guy?

But things had always been pretty easy with Derek. Because she’d never cared what he thought.

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