Page 252 of Ashes of Sin and Stardust

“You were wearing sunglasses to hide it, but you were ogling.”

“It was August. It was sunny.”

She giggled. “Sir. You were in the shade.”

“Shut up.”

Alice carried me throughmy drop like she did everything: with chaos, minor threats, and a lot of sexual references. But by the end of the night, I felt like myself, and she had managed to make me laugh enough times that she was starting to get concerned about her rule about earned orgasms.

“Um, so, would you be horribly opposed to us renegotiating that rule?”

I smirked. “What do you have in mind?”

“Uh... you know what? Let’s just nix it completely. Pretend it never happened.”

“What a shame. Well, if that’s really what you want, little bug.”

“I want to be able to walk through the grocery store without feeling like I need a walker because I’ve had too many orgasms.”

“It was twenty, by the way.”

“What?”

“Twenty orgasms. I didn’t stop at thirteen.”

“Motherfucker. No wonder I can’t walk.”

As much as Alice would have loved for me to order pizza or wings, I went ahead and made dinner. We fell into our natural routine of her chatting endlessly while she peeled, washed, and prepped, and I listened to her talk while I cooked.

“Alright. What is thisthingyou did today that you hope I won’t be mad about?”

“Okay so... you know how I have a TikTok for me, and also for you where I put videos of you being all sexy in the kitchen?”

“Sure...”

“I accidently posted a kitchen video to my account, and now everybody has made the connection, and there’s kinda a bunch of drama about it on the app...” She winced and grimaced. “I deleted it after I realized what I did and re-posted it on the right profile, but... um. The rocket has launched. And I’m really sorry...”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s fine, Alice.” When we’d discussed her putting me in her videos, I’d agreed I didn’t have a problem with her filming me, but that she needed to keep the content appropriate for the platform.

“I’ve been in my fair share of kink-related videos. They’re not hard to find, you know that. Why did you think I was going to be mad at you for that?”

“Well because you always talk online about how you hate brats, and I didn’t want to ruin your reputation by talking about how I brat you all the time.”

“You have my permission to brat me, as long as I have permission tofunishyou for it. And I doubt very seriously that videos of me chasing you while you run away from me after having said something snarky is enough to ruin my reputation, but I appreciate the...”

I paused as I saw the fresh, unopened bag of coffee on the counter.

“What is this?” I asked, holding it up to her.

“Oh, we ran out today. I know how you are about coffee, so I got the same stuff as you had before. I hope that’s okay.”

A little flash of that sweet, selfless service I’d seen the night of my dinner party came to mind, when she’d run out with tea for Jeff. The tasks I’d given Alice today had kept her inside on the computer all day, dealing with some phone calls, answering emails, and preparing a PowerPoint and a pivot chart for a presentation later in the week. I knew from the evidence left on her bedroom floor that she’d spent the rest of her free time looking through picture books of stars and coloring. She’d gone out, on purpose, to get more coffee for me, because she knew how I was in the morning.

And she made me a drink and cheered me up when she knew I was down.

I am at serious risk of falling in love with this girl.“I could kiss you.”

She backed up. “No, please don’t. Not until I’ve had a chance to recover from yesterday.”

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