Page 46 of The Pucking Proposal

“What are you doing, woman? Take me with you at least. Your ceiling’s boring as hell and I wanna see you. Pick up the damn phone.”

I grin at my reflection in the mirror, enjoying this a little too much. I fluff my hair, run a makeup remover wipe over my face to take off the pancake makeup, and do a quick rinse of mouthwash even though Dalton can’t smell my breath through the phone.

“Joyyyy! Heyyy! Joyyy!” he’s shouting as I plop back on the bed.

“Be patient. I was almost ready, but I just walked in the door,” I explain.

His lips press into a flat line, one brow arched. “You coulda taken me with you. A bit of ‘glad to see you’ urgency would be fucking appreciated, ya know?”

He’s pouting and it’s absolutely adorable.

“I was ... I mean, Iamglad to see you. But there’s a certain degree of difficulty in dealing with me. One of which is my charming lack of time management when it comes to discussing hockey stats. Some might call it obsessive. I call it passionate.” I grin at him, letting my eyes drink him in the way his are virtually licking over the screen as he sees me for the first time tonight.

He’s already shirtless and lying back in his bed, ready for tonight’s voyeuristic activities judging by the heat in his gaze and the tightness of his abs. I can’t see below his belly button, but I’d bet he’s already thick and hard. Maybe even leaking if he pregamed a bit.

“One, you look gorgeous,” he says with a lick of his lips. “Two, were you talking about my stats? And three, acertain degree of difficulty?” That last bit is echoed with a significant dose ofare you fucking for real right now?“You’re like an F5 tornado blowing through my life, except you bring orgasms, smiles, and good luck with your destructive force.Certain degree of difficulty, my ass,” he scoffs, smirking that sexy grin that I love to put on his face almost as much as I love wiping it off.

I’m not offended. Mostly because he’s right.

I know I’m a lot. But I’m also not willing to shrink myself for anyone. I’ve dated guys who didn’t understand my obsession with hockey and would get mad when all I wanted to do for seven months of the year was discuss the games. I’ve dated guys who hated my sleep late, stay up later routine because it didn’t work with their nine-to-five schedules when I couldn’t do a standard seven o’clock dinner date. I’ve even dated a guy who asked if I was going to keep our house a mess the way I do my apartment. That guy looked completely confused when I replied that if he was worried about the mess, he could pick it up himself because it doesn’t bother me in the slightest and I wouldn’t be “keeping our house” any sort of way because we weren’t going to have one.

So, Dalton saying I’m difficult isn’t surprising. But when he says it, it’s with a smile that indicates he doesn’t mind and is up for the challenge ... of me.

To that end, I might as well ask the one question I want an answer to. “Why’d you want to do a video chat and not meet up tonight?”

His smirk falls by degrees and he scrubs his hand over his jaw, which is scruffy with a short beard for this weekend’s games.

“Truth or I’m hanging up and taking care of myself on my own,” I warn, letting my fingertip trace a line down my sternum and circling around my nipple so he sees how hard it is. Not that I think he missed it when his eyes were drinking me in, but a little extra push couldn’t hurt.

He growls as he brings the phone closer to his face, not so I can see him but so he can see me and what my hand is doing better. “Because if I was there, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself. I’d fill that sweet pussy with my cock, fuck you hard into your mattress, make you come over and over until you’re a boneless mess. And only then would I come, making sure I stayed buried deep inside you so my cum wouldn’t leak out but would instead stay there all night long.”

“Holy fuck, why aren’t you here?That, let’s dothat!” I answer vacantly as my mind paints the pictures he’s drawing with his dirty words. I lift my breast from my cami, plucking at my nipple.

“Because I don’t want you to think that me fucking you has anything to do with a superstition. It won’t. Not at all. It’ll be because we both want it. Want each other.” He lets that sink in for a heartbeat and then, with a gravel-rough voice, says, “I want you, Joy. Do you want me?”

It’d be easy to say yes. Hell, it’s the truth. But also ... he’s not talking about desiring me. He means hewantsme. For more than sex. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.

“You’re terrifying,” I confess, not answering his question.

He nods, accepting my nonanswer like he understands exactly what I mean. “I’m also patient. And bossy, so show me both of those tits. Take your shirt off.”

He’s moving us back to safer territory, knowing I need it. Need him, but I’m too chickenshit to commit to more than something physical. Maybe this is what he meant by acertain degree of difficultymoreso than my weird schedule, hockey obsession, or messy nature. I’m not scared of anything, except letting him in.

He’s good at reading defenses and creating them as a goalie, but I think he’s blasting his way through my defenses ... as a man. And getting right into the tiny cracks and crevices I never fixed correctly. I threw a barbed wire fence around that damage, and that’s been enough to keep everyone else out. But not Dalton Days. For all the fight I have against him, that fence might as well be a four-foot chain-link defense that he can hop right over to poke and prod around wherever he wants.

I swallow thickly. He might be on the other side of the screen still, but tonight is something different for us. It’s more. It’s deeper. It’s ... real.

“Tell me what it’d be like for you to fuck me,” I say, pulling off my cami. “Talk me through it.”

“I’d kiss you, using your hair to pull your head where I wanted so I could taste your lips, your neck, your skin. I’d suck at your neck, but not leave a mark there because it’d make you nervous on-screen.”

I trail my finger along my neck, smiling that he knows me that way.

“I’d hold your tits in my hands, squeezing and kneading them hard because you don’t like just a gentle touch there when you’re turned on. I’d pinch your nipples until they’re red for me. Do it, Joy. Pinch them hard. You can take it. You like it.”

I do what he instructs, hissing as I pinch both nipples and roll them between my thumb and index fingers. Instinctively, my eyes flutter closed, and I circle the pads of my fingertips over the abused nubs, but he clucks. “Nuh-uh, pinch them again. Harder.”

I crack one eye open to glare at him, but the stern look on his face says he wasn’t asking. I do it again, and this time, a cry wrenches from my throat, but my thighs are scissoring on their own and I can feel the throbbing need behind my clit. “More.”

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