Page 46 of The Naughty List
Rejection lands hard in my empty stomach. Like a boulder rolling down a mountain, pulling me inward.
His expression is as pained as I feel, mirroring my own remorse and hurt.
“I want it to be you,” I confess, the words exposing my raw nerves.
“Why?”
I’m not prepared to answer that. I suck in a deep breath and try to form coherent sentences.
“Because you know what you’re doing. Because I know you don’t kiss and tell. Because I know you’ll make it worth remembering. A first time I’ll never forget.”
“No pressure, then,” he mumbles, still maintaining eye contact.
“I’ve always wanted it to be you. Since that first day, since the first time you looked at me the way you do.”
There’s always been a hunger in his eyes. A wolfish animal lurking inside of him. Like he wanted to devour me much like he just did.
That’s why there hasn’t been anyone else. All other men pale in comparison to Jonah. None of them have ever looked at me the way he does—have made me feel the way he does.
A fear creeps into my mind that I can’t control. No, not a fear. A universal truth.
All other men willalwayspale in comparison to Jonah.
So where do I go after this?
13
JONAH
LET IT SNOW
I’ve always wanted it to be you.
Her words imprint themselves onto my black soul.
Her first time isn’t about to happen on a cold granite countertop, so I lift her into my arms and carry her to my bedroom.
For two years I’ve waged a constant war inside myself. Half of me wanting Hollis Rossi more than anything and the other half not wanting to screw up what we have.
She’s my constant. The one person I trust completely. The one wholly good thing in my life.
But now the battle is won. Or lost. I don’t know. The lines are blurred and all I want is more of her.
All of her.
I’m about to make Hollis Rossi mine.
“I’m going to get your sheets all dirty,” she says, gesturing to the icing mess we made in her hair when I lower her to the middle of my bed.
“We’regoing to get them dirty,” I correct her.
Her eyes still have a blissed out haze from when I made her come on my tongue in the kitchen.
I want to make her come again, harder than before. So hard she convulses in my arms. I want to make this a night she won’t forget, and hopefully one she’ll want to repeat as often as possible.
An unfamiliar possessive sensation overwhelms me.
I’ve never slept with a woman I felt this way about. One I had no intentions of ever letting go.
