Page 83 of Prince Charmless
“Still a little rusty on the lying.” I’ll give her a seven out of ten on that one.
“Says the guy who I made jump into a pool.”
Slowly, she climbs on top of me again. Her hand dips under my shirt. Just as her lips reach my neck, I take her forearms, put them together, and set her back. Applaud me for my self-control.
“Melina,” I say seriously. “I don’t want to have sex tonight.” Well, I do want to have sex, I always want to have sex. But it’s too soon and I want to save her for as long as I can. Chocolate tastes so much better once you’re starved.
“We’ve already broken my no-flirting rule,” she says. “What’s one more?”
“We’re not breaking any more rules.” Her hair brushes against my cheek and lips when I lean into her ear. “I want youfucked properly.” She lets out a tiny breath, a small preview of the moan I’ll turn it into. “Also—” I lean back so she can see my genuineness. “I just don’t want to do it at my cousin’s house.”
She shrugs. “Fair enough.”
“You taste like chocolate by the way.”
“I didn’t know you were such a poet.” She rests a hand on her heart.
“I’m not. You actually taste like chocolate, like, for real.”
Her eyes widen. “Oh!” Melina digs for something in her back pocket and pulls out a tube of Chapstick that reads ‘brownie batter’. “My inner child buys lip balm that tastes like candy.”
“Can I try some?”
She holds the tube out to me. Instead of taking it I grab her waist and push her back against the couch. This’ll just be the appetizer.
26
Taylor
Melina uses her pinky to move my chin up and to the right. “I have to say this is weirdly erotic,” she mumbles.
I snatch her wrist to stop her from sponging my neck. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know. Something about you being all still and quiet is getting me hot and heavy.”
I look down at her body, sitting on my lap as we fly to New Hampshire. Maybe the eroticism comes from her straddling me.
“This is torture, Melina.”
I migrate my hands from her thighs to her waist and squeeze. She bucks before moving them to her hips.
“You act like you don’t like it,” she says.
Melina’s been muttering less-than-sweet-nothings in my ear all morning. I’ve been pretending I don’t hear them. And I thought I had dirty thoughts.
She cocks her head at my bruise that in the night shifted from being Florida-shaped to Alaska-shaped. I almost surprised myself in the mirror this morning until I remembered I got punched yesterday. In Cape Cod of all places. Aren’t people supposed to be friendly in quaint seaside towns? They are in St. Claire.
The jumbo hair clip I found in Melina’s makeup bag suddenly falls apart in my palm. I’ve been opening and closing it to keep my hands busy.
“I broke your thing,” I say, holding up the mangled object.
“That’s fine. It’s just the claw clip my great grandma gave me before she died.”
I squeeze her tighter. “Really?”
“No. They break all the time. I buy a new one like once a year.” She flips some hair over her shoulder. “This lying stuff is so fun.”
“I think honesty suits you better.”
