Page 117 of Problematic Summer Romance

I have no interest in listening to him rehash his greatest hits, and I don’t mind being in control. I don’t mind taking his hand and leading him to the couch. I don’t mind putting my hands on his bare shoulders and pushing him down to a sitting position. I don’t mind taking my clothes off while he watches, legs spread wide like the men on the bus, eyes darker than ever.

The pink sheer panties, I decide after I see the hitch in his throat, are allowed to stay. “Feel free to tell me how pretty I am,” I tease as my shirt slips to the ground. But Conor remains silent, lips parted, the muscles in his chest shifting with every breath. The ridge of his erection strains his sweats, a wet patch already darkening the front.

I straddle his lap, but he doesn’t touch me. He’s so tense, I wonder if he’ll shatter in a million pieces. When I move forward and lick his clavicle, a shiver reverberates through him. “Do you think about me?” I murmur against his skin. “When you are doing this with other people?”

“No.” I bite him—just a bit of teeth, to show him how little I liked his answer.That’s okay, I tell myself.He’s thinking about menow.But his hand comes up to push a lock of hair behind my ear. “I don’t do this with other people. Not since Edinburgh.”

I pull back. Search his face. He runs his fingers through my hair, a sweet, warm caress at odds with the fact that I’m all but naked in his lap. With the severity of his erection. “Avery?”

He thumbs my cheekbone. Shakes his head. “You were always there.”

“Where?”

“In my mind.”

I nod. Something sticks in my throat.

Expands even more when he says, “Since the first day I met you, you have been the best thing in my life. And you weren’t even in it.”

I close my eyes, overwhelmed by the wastefulness of the last few years. All that could have been. “What a romantic way to say that you think about me when you masturbate,” I joke.

“Maya.” His head tilts backward, resting against the leather. There’s a red flush on his cheekbones.

“Really? That’s the line, Conor?”

He groans. “It’s the Catholic guilt.”

I grin. “Youdothink about me, then?”

“I try not to.”

“Does it work?”

Laughter, exhaled. “Not once.”

“Aww.” I pretend to pout, and his thumb finds my lower lip. “I’m sorry.”

“No, you aren’t.” But he’s smiling, too, and looks more beautiful than ever, and I decide to lean backward, my palms on his knees, my ass settled on the lower part of his thighs. I’m spreadwide open, but he is doing a great job of holding my eyes, as though his gaze sliding to my tits might unleash a nuclear apocalypse.

“Tell me about these fantasies of yours.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, I do.”

His throat convulses. Visibly. “I don’t know that you would find it particularly sexy.”

“Try me. Are we in a church? Do I have tentacles?”

Making him laugh turns me on as much as making him hard. “Do youwanttentacles, Trouble? I can give them to you next time.”

“Maybe. Are we tickling each other? Turning into werewolves?”

The flush deepens. This is a side of Conor no one else sees. A little boyish. Timid. Iadoreit. “It’s embarrassing, Maya.”

“You don’thaveto tell me. But if you do, I might be able to make it come true.”

He huffs. Shakes his head. But after a minute, voice gravelly, he says, “I come home from work—”

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