Page 56 of You're so Basic

“You may be demented,” I tell her with a smile. I feel her lips there like a brand, but there’s something unsettled in her eyes. “You’re freaked out by all of this?”

“Aren’t you?”

I search my mind, my body. I should be afraid, but I’m not. “No, surprisingly,” I say. “But I don’t mind that you are. You’re right…this is a pretty unusual situation.”

“And so are we, so I guess it fits.”

I smooth her hair, then kiss her forehead. “Go ahead and turn on the movie, there’s something I need to do.”

Her eyes widen, and there’s a spark of interest in them. “Are you going to go jerk off in the bathroom?”

“You seem very interested in my jerking-off habits,” I comment. I’m not surprised that she knows what I’m after. My dick is so hard it’s probably visible from space.

“I am,” she says, eyes gleaming. “I like thinking about your hand wrapping around your dick, about you thinking about me while you pleasure yourself.”

I groan, because if she intended to make me crazy, she’s most definitely succeeding. “I’m going to do it in my bedroom. I’ll be back soon.”

“I’m going to be thinking about you doing it.”

I think, again, about trying to convince her there’s no reason to wait for Wednesday, but she threw down a gauntlet for me, and I’m not going to fail. I let my hand slide out of her hair and cup her cheek. “Good. Because I’lldefinitelybe thinking about you.”

ChapterSixteen

Mira

When I wake up, he’s gone.

The weird thing is that I know before I even leave my bedroom. There’s a hollowness to the apartment, like the inside of an emptied shell. Last night was…unexpected.

Dear Godwas it unexpected. Danny is the sneaky kind of hot that’s seeped into my bones, and I want to eat him like one of those pretty cakes displayed in the window of the bakery down the block from Glitterati. There’s just this…thingbetween us. It’s impossible to deny, even though I’ve been trying. It’s desire, obviously, but it goes so much deeper.

Last night, we watched the rest of the movie together, even though I couldn’t think about it because there was a constant pulsing between my legs—a knowledge that he’d fisted his dick, again, because he wants to fuck me with it. Because he wanted me so badly he couldn’t take it anymore…

There’s something powerful in knowing you can affect someone that way—especially a man like him, usually so guarded.

After we watched the movie, Danny consented to another round of mixology. I made both of us a drink this time, and we tapped the glasses together and took a sip.

He eyed me over the top of his glass, his lips lifting slightly, then said. “This one’s my favorite yet.”

“But?” I pressed, because I could tell there was one.

“But I still like beer better.”

I tilted my head, studying him. “You might not be boring, but you have questionable taste.”

“I likeyou,” he said, his eyebrows lifting.

“Again, you have questionable taste.”

“Before, perhaps. But not now.”

I figured we’d go to our separate beds and attend to some self-care, but we sat up late and talked. About the murder podcast and our theories about whodunnit. About creepy Big Mike and his hamster. About his game. I asked him more about his job, about hacking, but he gave me the kind of answers that just gave way to more questions.

I could tell neither of us wanted to end the spell that had been cast—the same as on that elevator, when the only thing that existed, for those few hours, was each other.

When we finally admitted defeat, he carried me to my bedroom and then, no shit, he tucked me in. Part of me wanted to tell him no, that I was a grown-ass woman who didn’t need someone to ply me with blankets and lattes and carry me around like I’m a princess, but it felt…nice. Because I might not need to be taken care of, but there’s a part of me that wants it.

“You threw those glasses,” I accused him through a thick throat.

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