Page 31 of Dearly Unbeloved
She sucks her breath in through her teeth. “Your name.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, well, you know how I feel about flowers, and… Anyway, I don’t think that’s going to work here.”
“Definitely not. I’m going to take a lot of pleasure in making you say my name over and over.”
15
SIERRA
There’s something in her voice that makes my mouth go dry. This is a terrible idea. Not the worst idea we’ve ever had—I’d say moving in together, drunkenly getting married, and then choosing to stay married take bronze, silver, and gold for bad ideas. This is up there, though.
But I said yes anyway. With little convincing. Because I know, without a doubt, that Rose absolutely will have me saying her name over and over. I don’t know anyone who sticks to their word quite like Rose Cannon.
“Take off the blanket.”
My eyes widen. I’m no stranger to Rose demanding shit, but this is… different. Her voice is low, melting into my skin and heating me from within. “N-now? Like this?” I stammer, looking around the room. Nerves flutter in my chest. She’s so intense, but it doesn’t usually faze me. I guess there’s something different about it when she’s about to see me naked.
Rose follows my gaze, her lips pinched. “I mean, if youwant to clean up in here first, you know I’d never say no. But that might take a while.”
It’s incredible, really, how quickly she can take me from turned on to pissed off. “That’s not what I meant,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m pretty much naked under here.”
“I’m sorry, did you want to get dressed before we have sex?”
“Can you turn out the lights?”
Rose tilts her head, narrowing her eyes and surveying me. God, I’ve never felt more like prey in my life.
She crosses her arms. “Why?”
I blink, surprised by the question. It’s not like I expected her to listen and do as I asked—though it would’ve been nice. I know her better than that at this point. My lungs feel tight as I suck in a breath. “I prefer keeping the lights off. It means I don’t have to feel self-conscious, you know.”
Rose sighs and shakes her head. “I’d tell you there’s nothing to feel self-conscious about, but I don’t know why I think you’d listen. So I suppose I’ll just have to show you.”
“I—what?” I splutter, but Rose has already turned away.
She looks over my dresser, and I can practically feel her wrinkling her nose at the clutter. Or what she perceives as clutter, anyway. Everything is actually placed intentionally, laid out so I can see all my favorite things.
Rose looks over her shoulder at me. “Lighter.”
It’s a demand, not a question, but I bite down the retort tickling my tongue. My nightstand drawer is no less chaotic than my dresser, but it only takes a couple of seconds to find the lighter and toss it to her. It might be chaos, but it’smychaos.
She catches it with ease—I bet she played some fancy-ass sport like lacrosse or tennis growing up—and turns her back on me again.
I listen to the click of the lighter and the crackle as she lights one of my many candles, but I stare up at the ceiling, steadying myself.
It’s not too late to call this off—any of it. All I have to do is say the word, and we can pretend we didn’t agree to sleep together. It would be easy. Getting out of the rest of it would be a little trickier—I don’t even know if we can annul this thing anymore—but we could figure it out. I just have to open my mouth and say I’m done.
But I don’t. I force air into my lungs as Rose lights more candles, and, when she flicks the light switch and plunges the room into shadows, I force myself out of my head and back into the moment.
“Better?” Rose asks, and I meet her gaze, curious but not judgmental.
“I guess.”
She returns to the end of the bed and holds a hand out for the blanket. I start to take it off, but hesitate.
“Why are you nervous?” Rose asks.
