Page 6 of Praise Me: Pilot
“Very,” she whispers, solemnly.
“How so?”
She ponders. “You want a specific example?”
“Yes.”
“I have to fast forward to the end of sitcoms to make sure things turn out all right.”
“Don’t things always turn out all right on a sitcom?”
“But what if I’m watching the one time they don’t?” She wrinkles her nose playfully at me, and my heart starts to palpitate. “Also, I cry when people are mean to the villain. No one knows what they’re going through in private.”
“You’ve got to have a boyfriend.”
She doesn’t even blink over the subject change. “I don’t have one. Why do you assume I would?”
Are they serving alcohol at this thing, or what? This girl and her soft, flirty voice have sweat beading on my forehead. “Never mind.”
“No.” She tugs on one of the middle buttons of my shirt. “Tell me.”
I search for the right words, but hell if my tongue isn’t tied in knots. “Men have a protective instinct. At least, the good men do. I can just see you making every man you meet…want to be a hero. Your hero.”
“That’s sweet. But I don’t need to be protected. I learned how to set boundaries, so I don’t get my feelings hurt as often anymore.” She looks down at my knuckle, which has started tracing the hem of her skirt, of its own accord.Fuck me. “It has taken me longer than it should have to set boundaries with my father, but after today, I think it’s time.”
I don’t know what to say to that. She’s probably right. Phil is a great friend, but obviously he has some work to do on his relationship with Haylo.
“There are all kinds of ways to be sensitive, though, isn’t there? Emotionally.” She guides my knuckle an inch higher, leaving it beneath her skirt where I can’t help but trace the softest skin I’ve ever felt in my life. The skin of Haylo’s high inner thigh. “I don’t know if I’m sensitive yet…physically.”
My dick starts to pulse like a bad omen. “What do you mean?”
“No one has ever helped me find out,” she murmurs, leaning up to speak a breath away from my ear, her gentle confession shooting heat down my spine, need like I’ve never felt pooling in my stomach.
“Are you trying convince me you’re a virgin?”
“Why do you need to be convinced?”
“Angel,” I scoff. “Men must lose their minds over you. I wouldn’t even believe you were a virgin if this was an all-girls school.”
“It’s not. Yet here I am. Still innocent.” Her lips brush my ear, and I have to grit my fucking teeth to prevent come from spilling into my briefs. “I know a way you can find out.”
Holy hell. “I thought you said you wouldn’t date a pilot.”
She blinks those vibrant eyes up at me. “Who said anything about dating?”
This is when it really hits me. How much trouble I’ve landed myself in here. I’ve still got tonight and a full day tomorrow with Haylo before I’m due back at work…and I want to raw dog her so hard, I can already hear the headboard cracking down the middle. But I can’t do that. I can’t betray my best friend’s trust like that. No way.
Furthermore, I know if I fuck this angel, virgin or not, she’s going to end up with a rock the size of Denver on her finger. AndI have a feeling she’d fight me tooth and nail on that. She doesn’t want a pilot. She’s made that abundantly clear.
Not to mention, she’s eighteen, for the love of God. In her first year of college.
What the hell am I going to do?
“Dinner is served!” shouts the sorority girl from earlier, the one who had the bullhorn, saving from having to answer Haylo’s question. For now.
But no number of courses is going to save me for long.
Not when my hunger for her is this severe—and worsening by the second.
