Page 140 of Beautifully Wounded

I don’t answer, my gaze remaining on his as he studies me up close. Too close. I can feel his hot breath, which should repulse me, but it doesn’t. Nothing about this man repulses me.

It would be easier if he repulsed me.

“Where’s rambling Abbey right now?” He smirks.

“I killed her,” I whisper, and he barks out a laugh.

“Come on, Abs, talk to me.”

Abs.

He called me Abs.

Oh.

“Did I do something wrong?”

I shake my head.

“Didyoudo something wrong?”

I nod this time.

“What did you do?” he asks before his brows draw close in a frown. “You’d better not have been thinking about other men while you watched me jack off.”

I roll my eyes.

He sighs. “There’s nothing wrong with what we just did.”

He knows. I can’t hide from him. He always seems to know even when I don’t say the words.

Still, I don’t say anything.

“Are you freaking out because I’m an old man, as you like to put it?”

I can’t help it. I try to hide it, but I’m helpless to fight the grin that tugs at the corners of my mouth, so I shake my head to try and hide it. But he notices anyway, his own lips kicking up.

“So, justa general freak out then?”

I nod and he studies me some more before he speaks.

“Are you ashamed of what we just did?”

I shake my head, but then nod, and change my mind and shake it again.

I don’t know how to answer that.

“So what is it, Abs?”

There it is again.

Abs.

My name shortened the way my friends did, when I had them.

I shrug, relaxing into the pillow as we stare at each other, and all I want him to do is call me Abs again.

“You know, sex can be as filthy as you want it to be, as long as both parties are on the same page.” Ringo reaches up and brushes back some of my hair the way he does often. “Just for the record, I was definitely into you watching me. I was definitely into you watching me shoot my load everywhere and hearing my grunts, too. Did you like watching that part?”

---