Page 69 of How to Bang a Billionaire

“Um, was that okay?” I blurted out.

Which was so much better.

His eyes snapped open. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I don’t know…I just…oh my God. Can’t you just say yes or no like a normal person?”

He opened his mouth. Closed it. And said finally, “I’m not sure how to answer that.”

For a moment I couldn’t work out how frustrated I was but I ended up laughing instead.

He looked briefly flustered. Then perilously close to amused. “I wasn’t trying to be evasive. Context is important. And I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

That was fair. Especially because I wasn’t sure either.

The thing was, I’d have been happy to be as vanilla as cupcakes with Caspian if that was what he wanted. But the problem was I just didn’t know anymore. It felt like something had changed between us. Or maybe I’d been imagining shit all along?

“I guess I want to check that I’m…um…that you’re happy with me? Was that…what you like?”

There was a silence I couldn’t read. Then, “Did I hurt you again?”

“What? No.” This was going the opposite of well. And rapidly developing into a conversation I didn’t want to have with my arse in the air. I rolled gingerly onto my side, trying to draw courage from the plink of the handcuffs as they swayed on their tiny chain. “It’s more about…The thing is, I want to be the very best prenegotiated sexual encounter I can be for you.”

“Arden”—somehow he managed to sound both fond and exasperated—“you don’t have to worry about that.”

“I know I didn’t exactly cover myself in glory at Oxford but I can be a devoted student when I’m passionate about my subject.”

“Sex?”

“You.” I gave him a hopeful, if slightly terrified, grin. “Which is why I was wondering if there was more I could be doing. When you’re, y’know, when you’re with me.”

“What do you mean?”

Nope. It was impossible to talk about this kind of thing casually. But I tried my damnedest. “Oh, just if you had any special preferences or fantasies or anything.”

“Nothing in particular.” Caspian was better at casual than me. He could build a fucking wall of casual.

But, because I was an idiot, I ran at it anyway. “Well, what sort of things do you think about?”

A very small pause. “Investment strategy, asset allocation, and risk management, mostly.”

“No, I mean when you’re…” Holy shit. Was I really asking Caspian Hart about his masturbatory habits? Apparently I was. And now I was thinking about them. Imagining him, stretched out and naked, much as he was right now, except taut and abandoned, his hand working his own cock. Gosh. What a vision. I would have given pretty much anything to see it…in the flesh, as it were.

He turned slightly. “When I’m what?”

I wussed out and made a gesture.

“Ah.” The hand I had speculated about was resting on his chest. I was a little bit envious of it, to be honest. I would have liked to draw my palm over the smooth skin and elegantly defined muscle—learn the texture of the curling, silky hair for myself. “If you must know, I think about you.”

He did? “That’s unexpectedly flattering.”

“It’s the truth.”

“So, err”—I wriggled a little closer—“what sort of things do you think about doing with…or to me?”

“We just did them.”

“All of them?”

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