Page 54 of Plays Well With Others

“You watched till I finished,” I say.

“Yes,” she says, sounding miserable. “The door was half open and I saw you in the mirror.”

“And you couldn’t look away,” I say, and I do my damnedest to wipe the cocky grin off my face. I swear, I do. But it might sneak onto my face.

She looks at my face, her guilty amber-eyed gaze catching mine. Her breath speeds up. “I couldn’t.”

Fuck friendship right now.

I am a man who wants a woman. And that woman has revealed herself. “Why’d you watch me?” I ask, pressing, pushing.

Playing.

Her cheeks pinken. “I…liked it,” she says, then closes her eyes, like she can’t believe she’s said that. When she opens them, those irises are no longer filled with apologies or guilt. They’re flickering with sinful confessions. “It was sexy. It was hot. Really hot. I tried to look away. But I couldn’t.”

I’m sizzling everywhere. “What did you do when you went back to my couch and pretended to be asleep?”

She startles. “You knew I wasn’t asleep?”

“Something seemed off then. You were too quiet. I didn’t put it together till now.” Smirking, I roll the dice. But this feels like a sure bet in this moment. “What did you do?”

She meets my gaze straight on. Squares her shoulders. Then whispers, “The same.”

Yes. Fucking yes.

Rachel in the dark, under the blanket, playing with her pussy while I was in my bedroom, hard again, horny again. Wanting. Wishing.

One room away, she was touching herself.

I’m aching to haul her into bed right now. But I will take my time with this gorgeous, fragile, incredible woman. I will make sure she knows what she does to this man. That’s what she signed up for. That’s what she wants. Girlfriend lessons. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s this—a man should treat his woman right both out of bed andinbed.

“When you played with yourself, what were you thinking?” I ask.

“About you,” she says in a feather of a voice. “All I thought of was you.”

I’m more than hot under the collar. I’m a forest fire. “What else? Did you think about the way I said your name when I came?”

She gasps, a sexy sound that turns into a shudder. “I did,” she whispers.

“Tell me something else, Sunshine.”

“Yes?” Her voice trembles.

“Did you come hard? When you were on my couch and I was in my bed, trying to sleep but failing because I was still fucking turned on? Did you come hard thinking about me getting off to you in the shower?”

She nods savagely. “I did.”

I don’t fight the cocky grin now. I don’t fight it at all. It takes over my filthy soul. “Can I kiss you?”

With hopeful eyes and an eager grin, she gives an answer. “Only if it doesn’t stop at kissing.”

That feels like a whole new kind of girlfriend lesson. And Rachel can enroll me right now.

19

PROPORTIONALISM

Carter

---