Page 73 of Wicked Sin

I don’t meanit to sound like a challenge, but that’s how it comes out.

“Is that whatyouwant me to do?” he asks evenly. “It would be hot if you want me to do it, sure. And not if you don’t.”

I snort. “That’s too good to be true. You can’t be that flexible.”

“You want to know what I really want?” He tops up his drink and leans back, taking up way too much space with how good-looking he is. “I like it when kink flows beyond the bedroom. When it’s foreplay and aftercare, when it’s cuddling with an edge, because the dirty stuff is just a part of who you are. It’s a part of who I am, and when I meet someone like you who seems to spark in the same direction. I like that. A lot. The details of how we fuck are secondary to that.”

“That feels like the PG-13 explanation.”

“There’s nothing PG-13 about how I want to cuddle with you.” Something deep in my belly zings at the rich, low promise in his voice. “Or how I might, for example, have done today’s shopping trip differently.”

Now he’s got me hooked. And excited, and nervous. Inside me is a weird mess of fluttery feelings and I think I like all of them. Even the nerves.

Maybe especially the nerves. “How so?”

“When you took off to go look at bathing suits, for example.” He reaches out his hand. “May I?”

I put my fingers against his, and he tugs my arm forward until he’s got my wrist circled. My pulse jumps at the warm, sure contact.

“What would you think if when you turned away, I caught your wrist like this and stopped you? Tugged you close to me, touched your chin, your cheek. Some gentle caress. And then I might whisper in your ear,You forgot to ask me if you could go.”

Fuck.

Every part of my body tightens up, gets heavy. “That’s…”

He watches me.

I swipe my tongue against my lower lip. “Ah… Okay. So that’s hot. I feel turned on when you say that, here, now. The idea of it is hot. But I don’t know how I feel about it actually happening.” I search his face. “Would you actually stop me from going shopping?”

“Fuck no. No. But that pulse, that momentary control thing…I think it’s hot, too.” He shrugs. “It’s just an example.”

But when he drops his fingers from my wrist, it doesn’t feel like an example. And I feel bereft, if only for a second, like something really interesting has been snatched away.

He bumps his knee against my foot. “Okay, here’s another one.”

I lean in, eager for more. “Gimme.”

“Since you liked your trip to Walmart so much today—”

“Like is a very strong word.”

He blinks innocently at me. “You don’t enjoy your Bag Balm?”

Actually, I really like it. That’s not the point. “You want to take me to Sephora next time?”

He ignores that. “Since you liked getting out of the house, I considered—for a brief, hot second—taking you to a thing tomorrow night. And then I realized it was a bad idea, for a bunch of reasons. One of those would be that I think our chemistry is too obvious. McBride has picked up on it.”

I wince. “Really?”

“Sarah’s cool. It’s fine. But my sisters are more obnoxious.”

His phone conversation from yesterday. My brain stutters over the new facts, rearranging what I’d thought he’d been talking about—having to break a date—with what it actually was. A family obligation. The logic record in my brain skips and screeches.

“What?”

A ruddiness climbs his cheeks. “I know it’s really not appropriate. I promise I don’t take women home to meet my mom after making out twice. But that’s just…another example.” He trails off, and it’s kind of weirdly endearing how embarrassed he looks.

“Because your family would see that we like each other?” God, that sounds so high school. Is that where I’m at? Entry-level, teenage-emotions level of kink and relationships?

---