Page 90 of Sweet as Sin (Bad Habit 1)
“Really? Is that why you’re not looking me in the eye when you say that?”
“It’s just . . . ” She sighed extravagantly and rolled her eyes. “God, I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.”
Now she had my full attention. I swung my legs over the chaise, peering at her through my sunglasses. The deck was hot beneath my bare feet, the sun warm on my shoulders. “Don’t tell me he’s not nice to you.”
“No, nothing like that! For someone who wears a gun to work, he’s surprisingly sweet.” She sipped from the glass of iced tea on the little table between us, then set it back down and began to apply more suntan lotion to her legs.
“So?” I prompted, impatient.
She paused, looking sheepish. “It’s just that . . . ” she cleared her throat. “Well, to be totally honest, he’s not a very good kisser.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not fatal. You can teach a guy to be a better kisser.”
Chloe just stared at me. She obviously had her doubts.
“Okay, like how bad? On a scale of one to ten, with one being the kiss in the rain between Allie and Noah in The Notebook, and ten being slobbered over by a Great Dane with a bad case of halitosis?”
She considered it a moment. “Forty-seven.”
“Oh my God, seriously?”
“Seriously. I have to wipe my face with a towel afterward. And my tonsils are sore. He’s an aggressively bad kisser. I just feel too bad for him to say anything. How could I even bring that up? ‘Excuse me, dear, but you’re tickling my lungs with your freakishly long Gene Simmons tongue. Mind dialing it back a notch?’ Yeah, that’s not a conversation I can see myself having with a man authorized to use deadly force.”
Picturing a horrified Chloe being slimed by a smitten Officer Cox, and her being too nice to clue him in, I started to laugh. It was hilarious.
“Dude,” said Chloe, unamused.
“I’m sorry,” I replied, gasping with laughter, “it’s just too funny!”
“Uh, no, actually it’s not. The worst part is Eric is otherwise a really great guy. We have a lot in common, and we laugh the entire time we’re together, but,” here Chloe shuddered, “now every time he gets near my face, I have a panic attack.” She sighed. “I think I’m going to stop seeing him. We haven’t done the deed yet, but I can’t imagine having sex with someone I’m afraid will drown me in a tsunami of spit.”
I had to cover my face with my hands I was laughing so hard. Chloe fished an ice cube from her drink and threw it at me.
Finally I calmed myself enough to speak. “Okay, I have an idea.”
“If you’re going to tell me we should make an appointment with Grace, I will throw you in the pool.”
“No, no, listen. What if you took charge of the situation?”
Chloe merely blinked at me.
“So, for instance, what if you told him you’d always wanted to play ‘Interrogation,’ and you handcuffed him to the kitchen chair?” As Chloe’s brows rose, I started to really warm to the idea. “Maybe he’s a spy, and you’re an FBI agent, and he has top secret information you need. Maybe the only way you can get it out of him is to tease it out. Maybe he has to sit in the chair and let you do all the . . . um . . . stuff, so that you can be in control.”
Chloe sucked thoughtfully on her straw. “So he couldn’t even kiss me back, or I’d win, like that?”
I nodded. “That way the whole pace of it is in your hands. If he gets too, um, enthusiastic, you stop. If he controls himself, you reward him with . . . well. I’m sure you’ll figure out something creative.”
Chloe’s button nose wrinkled. “It sounds like an awful lot of work. Did you have to teach Nico how to kiss?”
I smiled. Chloe said sourly, “That’s what I thought.”
From across the yard, a voice called, “Girls!”
Chloe and I turned to see Nico standing at the back of the house, where the living room opened to the pool terrace. He was barefoot, wearing faded, holey jeans and a Led Zeppelin T-shirt so old it was almost transparent. His hair was mussed and he hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his smile was as brilliant as the sun.
As it always did when I saw him, my heart fluttered like a hummingbird’s. I’d never, ever get used to the fact that that beautiful creature was mine.
“Come and eat! We’re takin’ a break!” He waved, then disappeared inside.
