I keep my breathing even and continue stroking her arm as usual, though I’m sure my heart betrays me. “Not while we’re in the middle of it,” I say, and she snorts. “But my thoughts have drifted over it a couple of times, even if I know it’s dumb.”
“I’m sorry you have to live with that,” she whispers, curling the cord of my scapular around her finger.
“Don’t be,” I tell her.
She exhales before she goes on. “Do you want to hear the truth?”
“Always,” I say again, and I try not to brace myself.
She tilts her face up to look at me. “It was never like this, not even close.”
My chest expands with my relief, and I can’t help but smile. “Not even once?”
She grins and shakes her head. “Not a single time.”
“Thank you for telling me that, even though you didn’t have to,” I say, and she nods. “Is it my turn now?”
“Go for it,” she says with a more serious expression.
“Are you afraid that I’ll be upset or disappointed if you turn me down?”
Her eyelashes flutter in a way that gives me my answer before she articulates it aloud. “A little.”
I frown. “I’d never get angry with you if you weren’t in the mood, you know, for whatever reason.”
“I know. But I understand what it feels like to be rejected, and I’d never want to make you feel that way, either. Especially after you waited so long.”
“And how many times have you pushed through it so far?” I ask carefully.
She purses her lips as she thinks. “I guess that depends on what you mean by ‘not in the mood.’ ”
“Oh.” I can’t help the way my frown deepens.
“There have been at least two times when you tried to initiate something while I was busy or my mind was elsewhere, but that just means I wasn’t thinking of starting it first. There have been exactlyzerotimes in which I was not a very willing participant by the time you planted the idea in my head,” she says with a grin, and a smile immediately takes over my face. “How many times have you gone along with it for my sake?”
I pretend to consider it. “Let’s see, there was that one time …” I glance down at her as I trail off, unable to keep my lips from twitching. She huffs and pinches me in the side.
“I amalwaysin the mood for you. The only thing that can knock me out of it is when you aren’t feeling it for whatever reason. If you’re into it, I’m into it. Every time.”
“What if I made you mad first?” she poses.
“Then I’d lose an argument real fast.”
“What if I got sick?”
“I’d offer you a dose of my own special brand of penicillin.”
She giggles and raises her arm to sniff her armpit. “What if I hadn’t showered in a day or two?”
“Didn’t I just tell you twenty minutes ago that you could never turn me off?” I remind her. “I don’t care if you have morning breath, hairy legs, and musty armpits. If anything, I’m a sucker for your natural pheromone smell, especially in combination with the barn hay.”
She rolls her eyes and stifles a smile. “Okay, what if I had tummy troubles?”
“We both know you could literally let one rip, and I’d still be into it.”
“That was a bad example, especially since you’re the one who tooted on our first date,” she admits.
“Look, I’d like to think of myself as a pretty hygienic guy, but I’m still a guy. Not to mention, I’m a doctor. You have no idea what it would take to gross me out.”
