Page 46 of Unrealistic Expectations

In the middle of her sentence, he wrapped his hands around her waist and flipped her so she was sprawled below him on the bed. She laughed, but it was breathless and mixed with a moan. “We should what?”

While he waited for her to answer, he took both of her hands in one of his and pinned them above her head. He nuzzled her face and kissed her at random intervals. They were fully adults, and she’d never had sex like this—she’d never felt like she was worth savoring.

“We should do whatever you want to do.”

He pulled back and wolfishly smiled at her. “That’s the right answer.” But then he got up and found his pants, which only momentarily confused her before he pulled a condom out of his pocket. “There are more in the bathroom.”

He rolled it on, and she was enthralled with watching him. She liked the way he moved—as though he was totally confident in his body. She might have even licked her lips. Her admiration was definitely all over her face, because he said, “You like what you see.”

“Shut up.” He didn’t need to point out how gone she was for his physical form. Anyone who saw him naked would be impressed at how his genetics and exercise mixed to make him strong and graceful, even though he was big enough to have to duck his head in doorways in old buildings.

He prowled back to her when the condom was on, but he didn’t just get on top of her and start pounding away. From what her clients said, that was the modus operandi of most really good-looking guys who slept with a lot of people. They weren’t interested in connecting because there would always be another partner available.

“How did you get so good at this?” It wasn’t the right question to be asking right now. If she’d kept her mouth shut, she’d probably be about three-quarters of the way to a second orgasm.

“You’re great for my ego.” He shrugged, and it was attractive because it was incongruous with his confident demeanor. He was more complex than he seemed to be on first glance, and she was glad she’d finally gotten the chance to see it. “But you and I are a unique mix, and it’s so good because we want it to be, and it just is.”

She grabbed his face and pulled it down to hers. “Right answer.”

He moaned into her mouth when she wrapped her legs around him and rubbed her center against his erection. That snapped his control, just as she’d planned. He lined up his dick with her entrance and filled her up. Both of them stilled for a long moment. She never wanted to forget this moment. Despite his pretty words, she knew that this would end eventually. She would have to squirrel away the memories of this for when it did.

She memorized his face as he drove inside her, and he must have noticed that she was looking at him very intently. He slowed down and said, “Touch yourself.”

When she didn’t immediately comply—when did he get so bossy?—he stopped moving altogether. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing was wrong until you stopped.”

“You weren’t there with me. You were thinking so hard that I could see the wheels turning in your head.”

“I was just looking at you.”

“And if you have the capacity to just look at me, you’re obviously not as into this as you should be.” He sounded irritated, but he was still hard, so he couldn’t be that irritated.

“I refuse to argue with you while you’re inside me.”

“Then don’t argue and touch yourself.”

At this point, it was easier to just do what she was told than to argue any more, so she snaked her fingers in between them and rubbed her clit. His sweaty torso brushed the back of her hand as he started to move again.

“Happy now?”

“I’ll be happy when you’re too blissed out to sass me.”

She liked when he talked to her like that, and she was too into him to question it. It was like sex with him shut off the part of her brain that housed feminism. And even though she was climbing toward another climax, she still tried to imprint on her mind the look of him wrecked by them together.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

A lot of the advice in your book is really harsh, starting with the title. Is that because you hate men?” Jessica didn’t hate men, but she was certainly starting to hate this reporter. When they’d sat down at the bar on the roof of the Standard, she’d gotten a good vibe from this woman. There was something sharp and wary about her gaze that told Jessica that she had a story to tell. She always loved when she had a client with that kind of wary gaze. It meant that there were going to be layers to get through before they got to the good stuff. A challenge.

But Jessica had failed to take into account the fact that she was the person being interviewed, which wasn’t anything like therapy, but it made her feel like she was in therapy. With a really ferocious therapist who had no interest in holding space for her to process anything.

“I don’t hate men. I have a lot of male clients and there are a lot of men in my life that I love. I wrote the book because I want them to live happy lives and have the best possible experiences in romantic partnerships.”

“But you think men need to be told that ‘women are people, too’? That seems really elementary.” The reporter had closely studied her book, which she appreciated. It was better than the people who took one look at the title and decided she was a misandrist who’d written a joke book. That had actually been in an email from an angry men’s rights activist.

“If you take a look at the way we’ve set up our society, women, nonbinary people, anyone with a marginalized sexuality, racial background, or disability is essentially part of an underclass. And, in my experience, a lot of straight men don’t treat the women they date like people at all. They treat potential romantic partners like consumer products and endlessly compare one to the other like they were deciding which boat to buy.”

“You certainly sound like you hate men.”

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