Page 69 of Fluke
I chuckle. “I’ll make sure to schedule that.”
“Schedulelotsof that.”
“I’m being serious.” I smile. “What do you want to do?”
“What are my choices?”
“Anything, really. I proposed Silver Springs, so I assume that’s where we’ll go. But, I mean, I can change that if you would rather go someplace else.”
He moves to see my face. A playful smirk graces his lips.
“What?” I ask.
“You really don’t get it, do you?”
I struggle to sit up. He resists me detaching from him and frowns when I finally manage.You’re so freaking cute.
“What are you talking about?” I ask, pulling the sheet over my chest. “I really don’t get what?”
He narrows his eyes. “First of all, you don’t get that I don’t like you hiding from me.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He sits up and reaches for me. I hold my breath as he loops a finger around the top of the sheet and tugs it away from my body. His knuckle slides down my sternum as the cotton drops to my waist.
I give him a look.
Despite my obvious displeasure with having the sheet pooled at my waist and my breasts on full display, he just stares at me unbothered.
“You didn’t mind being naked for me earlier,” he says.
“That was a slightly different situation.”
“How?”
“Well, earlier I had hormones flooding my system because I’d been on edge for hours.”
He smirks.
I pretend to glare at him. “But I’m satisfied now and thinking rationally, and it’s just …”
His gaze softens. “Just what, Pip?”
I’ve never had a man ask me why I might be self-conscious or feel any particular way.I don’t think any of them have cared. And the mixture of potential embarrassment from explaining myself when it comes to not wanting to sit in front of him naked and the tenderness in his eyes puts me on shaky ground.
“Come on,” he says, resting his palm on my sheet-covered thigh. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on. You know, it’s just that … I don’t have body image issues or anything. I’m aware that the models on the internet are airbrushed, yada, yada, yada. But you’re …you,and I’m sitting here with boobs that aren’t quite as perky as they used to be. Maybe a couple of extra stretch marks here and there.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “It’s a pride thing, I guess.”
He grins.
“Don’t you even think about laughing at me,” I say, smacking his leg.
“You think I’d laugh at you?” He squeezes my thigh. “You don’t know me at all.”
“But you’re smiling.”
Now the bastard laughs. “I’m smiling because this is, like, the pinnacle of my life, and you’re sitting there thinking I’m mentally sizing up your tits or something.”
