Page 44 of Keeping What He Wants

She supposed she needed to lighten up. She had asked him for a romantic getaway, and he’d gone through all the trouble of planning it and it really was fantastic. Freaking out over the cost would do a disservice.

“I needed this.” She smiled at him from across the dinner table after they’d eaten. “Thank you.”

He lifted his wine glass filled with water. “Yeah, well, you deserve to have fun. You’ve been stressed out a lot with work and the thing with your dad. I haven’t made life easier on you either.”

She sat her wine glass down. “What did you want to be when you were younger?”

He swirled the clear liquid in his glass. “I always wanted to be a club member.”

“Nothing else? No Astronaut? Fireman? Businessman?”

“Not really.” He propped his chin up on his hand. “I wanted to be a club member. I wanted to be president of the Roaming Devils Atlanta chapter.”

She glanced up at the night sky. “Say that’s not an option. What would you want to be then?”

He sipped his drink. “Your love slave.”

She laughed. “From childhood?”

“At least fifteen.” He reached for the bottle of wine between them. “I had a dirty mind and all kinds of fantasies about me and you.”

“Ooh. Do share.”

He laughed. “I’d rather show you.”

“Oh, come on. Tell me your teenage fantasies.”

Sitting back in his chair, he studied her. “Do you remember Mr. Swanson’s chemistry class?”

“Yes. I had an A all year long.”

He smiled, rubbing a hand over the scruff on his face. “You wore this short dress one time. Yellow with little pink flowers on it. It was sleeveless, and you had a denim jacket to cover your arms.”

“You remember that?”

“Vividly. You dropped something and bent over right in front of me. I saw your lacy white panties.” He propped his chin on his hand. “I spent all day trying to come up with a plan to get you to take them off. I wanted to see your pussy. I was obsessed.” He cleared his throat. “I still am.”

“That’s almost endearing if not a little creepy.”

He laughed. “Didn’t you want to have sex in high school?”

She lifted her glass of wine. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Are you glad you waited until you were nearly thirty?”

She smiled. “Yes. You rocked my world.”

“I could have rocked your world at fifteen.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ella doubted that. He’d been a cocky bastard who probably hadn’t known much about sex back then. The girls had loved him though. Rumor had had it that he’d traded sexual favors near the back exit of the school. “Would we be together today if you had?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not.”

“Do you regret fucking so many women?”

Pursing his lips, he didn’t answer her immediately. “Regret? Not really. I regret not being more careful about it. I wanted you and I tried to replace you by fucking any pussy willing to let me in.” He met her gaze. “I keep trying to tell you that I don’t want someone else. I’ve had other women. It’s not the same. A few seconds of pleasure is not going to replace what we have. I owe a lot to you, believe it or not. You’ve saved me more than once. I have a feeling I’m going to fuck up again and you’ll be right there, ready to jump in. I don’t deserve it, but I treasure everything you give me, Ella.”

Crossing her legs, she glanced down at her plate. When he put it that way, she got the message. “I wanted to be your friend at fifteen. You didn’t give me the time of day. One of my friends told me it was because I didn’t spread my legs for you.”

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