“Oh.” How was she getting this so wrong?
“Not exceptions. Just one exception.You.”
The way he said that one word, “you,” was like tossing a lit match onto a dry bush doused in gasoline. Her entire body went up in flames of arousal.
“Does that mean that you want to… that we…” Poppy was trying to get the words out, but they weren’t forming.
“Yes,” AJ replied. “If that’s what you want.”
“I do,” she confessed breathlessly.
Poppy hadneverbeen so nervous to have sex before. Not even when she lost her virginity in the corn mazes with Jeremy Miller. She was trying to tell herself that her high levels of anxiety could be attributed to her never being with anyone she’d beenthisattracted to. And while there was some truth to that, the real issue was that she’d never been with someone who was neurodivergent. She didn’t want to do anything that would turn him off or make him feel uncomfortable.
Perhaps sensing her inner turmoil, his brow furrowed slightly as his eyes searched hers. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she doubled down as she took a deep breath and blew it out. “Justpromiseme that you’ll tell me if I do something wrong, even if it’s super awkward and you think it will hurt my feelings and you want to stop. Promise me.”
He blinked, once, then twice, before letting out a sound that was not quite a laugh but more like the leak of air leaving a balloon. “You’re funny,” he said, lips twisting at the corners.
As much as she appreciated that he found her amusing, this was not a joke.
“This isn’t a bit. I’m not workshopping new material for a five-minute set. I’m serious?—”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Yes, I do,” she blurted out, her mouth was moving faster than her brain again. “You have sex with you all the time. I don’t.”
She heard the words as they tumbled out, and for a half-second, she wanted to stuff them back in, maybe with a handful of cotton balls for good measure. She hadn’t meant it to be funny, she was just trying to make a point, but it just sounded like she was accusing him of being a chronic masturbator, which, okay, maybe not inaccurate, but still. Not sexy.
AJ’s lips parted, and the megawatt smile that spread across his face took her by complete surprise. She’d thought she’d seen the man smile, but she realized that what she’d seen before were merely warm-up, stand-in grins to the real thing. This was a full-fledged, ear-to-ear, knock-the-wind-out-of-you smile so bright it made her heart stutter.
It revealed a dimple in his left cheek, deep enough to collect rainwater, and for some reason, the sight of it made her want to pour warm chocolate in there and lick it out, which was such an insane thought that she had to bite down on her own tongue to stop from saying it out loud.
She took a breath and did her best not to show how affected she was by his smile, his eyes, his voice, his scent, his mere presence. Everything about this man turned her on.
“Are you sure you’re not working on a set?” he teased.
“Now who’s being funny?” Poppy tried for a little extra bravado, but her voice quivered, an audible tremor that betrayed her. She felt her cheeks flush, her chest tightening, and at the same time her whole body seemed to want to dissolve into the charged space between them. If she’d had any hope of hiding how completely AJ unraveled her, it was gone. She was certain he could read her body like a damn road sign.
But AJ, for all his directness, didn’t call her on it. Instead, he studied her with a scientist’s focus, as if committing her every microexpression and tell to memory.
“You know what I mean,” she said, determined to keep the conversation on track, even as her brain started to short-circuitunder the weight of anticipation. “I’m worried I’m going to do something, move some way, or touch you somewhere that will turn you off or make you feel uncomfortable.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” he stated plainly as if it was a fact like grass being green or the sky being blue.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“That’s easy for you to say, you know all the things that you like and don’t like. And with your sensory issues, I would assume that those things are heightened.” She tried to sound clinical, as if they were discussing dietary restrictions instead of the precise boundaries of sexual pleasure. “How do you deal with that?”
“Typically, I have ways around that.”
What was all the “typically” talk?
“You haveways?”
“Yes,” he said, and there was a finality in the word that sent a new surge of electricity through her.
