22
GOOD GIRL (EDEN)
Dinner should have been harmless. Grilled chicken, quiet conversation, Nate keeping things infuriatingly light. But every smile, every rumbling chuckle, every lingering brush of his gaze chips away at my walls.
And then dessert arrives.
One bowl. Vanilla gelato drowned in espresso. Two spoons catching the candlelight.
My eyes widen. I glance at him, and he only lifts an eyebrow, daring me to speak. But words desert me—verbs and nouns refusing to line up.
Seriously? Who ordered this, and why are we sharing like we’re…a couple?
I freeze, staring at the melting swirl, mind scrambling. Do I call it out? Decline? Pretend it’s no big deal?
Nate doesn’t give me the chance. He smiles, eyes locked on mine, and he scrapes his chair closer. He scoops up a spoonful and holds it steady at my lips.
“Open up.”
My pulse spikes. “I can feed myself.”
“I know you can.” His words wrap around me, devastating in their quiet certainty. “But you’re going to let me take care of you, aren’t you?”
An electric shiver tears down my spine. My rational mind seems to have fled entirely.
“Open up, baby.”
The endearment hits somewhere deep, curling through me with dangerous warmth. Ridiculous—it’s just ice cream.
And still, my fingers curl obediently in my lap. Slowly, as if I’m stepping into fire, I part my lips. Silken vanilla cream hits first, chased by the dark bite of espresso. Nate watches me swallow, night bleeding into his pupils.
“Good girl,” he murmurs.
The words detonate inside me, molten, devastating. My thighs press tight beneath the table, the reaction automatic, traitorous. His gaze flicks down, that smirk spreading.
I reach for the second spoon, desperate to claw back some control. But his hand closes over mine—large, warm, unyielding. He slides the utensil out of reach without breaking eye contact, then lifts my hand instead. His mouth brushes over my knuckles, a featherlight kiss that sends fire searing up my arm. His breath grazes my skin, and my whole body stutters, caught between panic and surrender.
“Let me set the pace,” he murmurs, soft as velvet but threaded through with command. My body already knows the answer before my brain can form it. My eyes widen, and I nod.
The next bite is slower. He lingers at my lips, the spoon skimming the corner before slipping in. The cold steals a gasp, and his gaze doesn’t budge—dark, hungry, probably imagining my mouth in other places.
Without meaning to, my eyes flick down. Biting my lip, Icatch the outline straining against his pants. Panic jolts; I look back up fast.
But he caught me.
His eyes are bleeding darkness. “You want to touch me, Trouble?” The words drag across my skin. “Be good for me, and maybe I’ll let you.”
Someone dropped me straight into a volcano. Every nerve ending burns, restless and wanting.
A rivulet of espresso slips from the corner of my mouth, icy against overheated flesh. I flinch at the contrast, but Nate’s already leaning in, thumb brushing the streak away before his mouth follows, tongue sweeping over my skin.
The shock of cold and heat colliding steals my breath, my brain stalling out entirely. Part of me is mortified, the rest of me is shattering under the weight of how natural he makes it feel.
“You’re making a mess of yourself,” he rasps, as if licking me clean in public is the most casual thing in the world.
My heartbeat is a wild thing in my chest. My skin buzzes, and I can’t decide if I want to crawl under the table or climb across it into his lap. No one’s ever made me feel this undone—with a spoon, a word, a flick of a tongue.
Before I can catch my breath, Nate shifts even closer. The scrape of his chair makes my pulse stutter. His hand snakes across the table, fingers curling around my right wrist. Gently—deliberately—he guides it behind my back.
