Page 17 of Stripped

“I mean three steps from my back door, next door.”

“Wow,” I said, somehow smiling seconds after mention of my dead parents. “That's insanely close. Does your mom still cook for you?”

He grinned, not at all bothered by me implying he was a momma's boy. The waiter set down our plates of food and left. Zane leaned over his plate. “My mom is a horrible cook, but yeah, sometimes my dad cooks for me. Sometimes I cook for my parents. Once, I was having amazing dining room table sex and the two of them walked in on it.”

I had, unfortunately, just swallowed a bite of gnocchi and I almost choked to death. Zane leapt from his seat, hurried around to my side of the table, and slapped my back until I could breathe again. Once I could breathe, I laughed. “Dining room table sex?”

He chewed, his eyes rolling back in his head. “This is amazing. I've never tasted anything like it.”

“Imagine if you'd tried something new,” I said. “Although, I think I'm understanding why, since you can't seem to leave your childhood.” I spoke in a teasing tone, but I didn't fault him for his closeness with his parents. I'd give anything to have my parents still alive and well, even my privacy and independence.

“Childhood is the best part of life. Why would anyone want to leave?”

I nodded, my smile turning to a frown. I'd had a happy childhood, with parents who'd adored me. We hadn't had much money, but there'd always been love and support. Until the hog farm closed when I was fourteen and money got so tight we didn't always have enough to eat. My parents had started fighting then, blaming each other for our situation. My mother wanted to leave town, find a new place with more job opportunities, but my dad didn't want to leave the only home he'd ever known. He'd started drinking and my mom had gotten more and more angry and bitter. Their love had turned into something dark and twisted and toxic. They still loved me, but they used me to hurt each other. My mother would point out that I'd lost weight because there was nothing to eat and blame my father, and my father would point out that I was working when I should be doing homework and having fun and suggest my mother get a better job. Things were finally starting to get better, my dad had found a decent job as manager at the grocery store and my mom had gotten a promotion at the hair salon, when they'd run off the road and hit a tree on their way out of town to shop for clothes for my mom's promotion. “I can't imagine why.” Sadness washed over me. I should be over the loss of my parents, but I missed them every single day.

“So, you've never experienced dining room table sex?” Zane asked, smiling sympathetically like he understood I was sad and wanted to change the subject.

“Can't say as I have.” It would probably surprise most people to know just how vanilla my sex life, what there was of it, had been. I might take my clothes off and dance on a stage, but that was easier somehow than getting physically and emotionally close to someone in a bedroom or on a dining room table.

He frowned and tsked in disapproval. “Dining room table sex is the caviar of the sex world, the expensive champagne. It's for the fancy, trying-to-impress-your-date date.”

I laughed. I might have giggled. He was kind of adorable. “What makes it so fancy?”

“It's impressive to a) just shove everything off the table and feast on a woman, to savor her like she's the only thing you ever want in your mouth. Plus, it proves you're not too cheap to buy furniture that can hold her weight.”

I felt a bit starry eyed and desire rolled through me, making me ache. This was new. I enjoyed sex, had been attracted to several men, but I'd never felt like this, like I wanted to sit on his lap and feel his strong arms around me while he spoke dirty to me about table sex. “What other kinds of sex are there?”

His gaze heated and his smile turned wicked. “There's sex against the wall to demonstrate how strong I am, how biologically adapted to protect my woman. There's yoga sex to demonstrate my flexibility and agility. Shower sex to show her I can get dirty and clean equally well. There's—”

“What about you?”

He stopped, confused. “What about me?”

“You're talking about all this sex to show her what you're capable of, but what does she do to show she's right for you? What do you like?” I was getting too serious for what had started as a silly, light-hearted conversation, but I honestly wanted to know.

His eyes clouded for a moment and then he smiled. It wasn't a wicked smile or an amused smile, it was a fake smile. “I like it all. The right woman will turn me on no matter what she does.”

I chewed my gnocchi and considered letting this go, but… I just couldn't. I was a helper and I felt Zane needed help. “I call bullpucky,” I said.

His smile slipped only a millimeter. “Go ahead and call it whatever you want, I stand by what I said.”

“So, you'd love it if a girl took that wall sex and cooed over your strong, strong muscles? That would be enough for you? Or would you prefer she scratched her nails down your back, marking you as hers? Would you only be thinking of her pleasure in that shower? Would you complain if she dropped to her knees and put all her focus on pleasuring you? Making you happy? Proving to you that she was the kind of woman who gave your needs priority, too?”

He was staring at me, but I couldn't decipher his expression. I wasn't sure if he was annoyed, angry, or if he'd tuned me out because some woman with huge boobs had just walked by. Finally, his gaze focused and he cleared his throat. “There's nothing wrong with any of that, but it's just sex. I want more than sex.”

“Really?” I didn't know a ton of wolves, but the rumor was that they enjoyed a promiscuous, judgment-free kind of lifestyle. “What do you want?”

“I want a wife who I come home to every night,” he said, his expression tight. “I want a warm home and children. Laughter and love. A man has to work for that kind of life, has to prove himself.”

My heart ached and I wasn't sure why. I could picture it, the warm home, Zane walking through the door, a huge smile on his face. I could see him picking up a little girl and spinning her in wide circles…I shook it off. “Maybe…” I stopped, not sure what to say, not sure how to approach this dream of his. “Maybe a man just has to meet the right woman and fall in love. Maybe the work and the proving, maybe that's something the man and the woman do together.”

He chewed slowly, thoughtfully. “It's a pretty dream,” he finally said. “But I don't buy it. Everything worth having has to be worked for.”

I didn't disagree with that. I'd started working when I was eight, cleaning for my grandmother and friends of hers in the neighborhood, and I hadn't stopped since.

“What about you?” he asked. His expression lightening. “What's your dream?”

It didn't escape my attention that he was avoiding saying much about himself. I could have pushed, but I doubted it would get me anywhere. He was the most stubborn person I'd met in a long time. “I was never one of those girls who dreamed of my wedding day or a white knight billionaire to ride in and save me. Even as a little girl, I dreamed of finding that job that would mean I'd never worry where my next meal was coming from or how much longer I could darn socks before they fell off my feet. A job that would provide me with the money to travel and see the world.”

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