“To your back? You always ran from me.”
I shrug, looking away, feeling a bit silly for ignoring her for so long. “Hey, I can’t have a main character nose and be smart at the same time.”
She giggles, the sound so lyrical and beautiful. “I love your nose. I love how it’s round,” she says, tracing the base of my nose, “but yet so sharp. It’s the sexiest nose I’ve ever seen.”
“Wow, I don’t know what to say.” My heart is pounding in my chest. After everything Tessa did to get us here, I almost want to tell her that her favorite male main character of Maggie’s has my nose.
That seems a bit cruel, though.
“I have to admit, I like how it makes me feel that you based something on me in a series I truly enjoy.”
Maggie licks her lips, tracing my jaw with her forefinger. “I have a feeling I’ll be basing a lot of things on you.”
“I’ll send an invoice for part of my royalties,” I tease, and she grins. I squeeze a chunk of her ass cheek and smile at how much I love her ass in my hand. She feels damn good on me. “Have you always wanted to be a writer?”
She nods, laying her head on my chest. “I’ve always loved reading. And one day, I wrote this intense story line for my Barbies, and that was it. I had the writing bug. I wrote all the time, different stories, different characters. When I couldn’t do something, I’d write myself into the character, so it was like I was doing it.”
I move her hair off her face so I can drink in her gorgeous profile. “What made you choose to write romance?”
Her cheeks rise a bit, letting me know she’s smiling. “Ilovelove,” she admits. “I love writing two people’s love story, because even though I’m writing it, I’m experiencing it too. I’m falling in love with both of them and bringing them together as one. It’s so much fun and fills me with such joy.”
“You’re really good at it too.”
She props her chin on my chest. “Am I? I heard you were a fan.”
I grip her ass again. “Not just of your writing, but of you.”
She beams at that. “I also really love sex.”
This woman. I chuckle deeply, moving my hand along her ass cheek.
“Well, you’re damn good at that,” I say, and she giggles against my chest. Her soulful eyes hold mine, and I continue to brush my thumb along her cheek. “What’s going on in that head, pretty girl?”
“I want to ask something, but I feel like I’ve kind of pressured you into doing this.”
She gestures around us, and I can’t help but smile. “Pressured, no. I wanted this. Badly. I just couldn’t get out of my own head.”
Her eyes continue to search mine. “Six years without sex? Bad girlfriends?” I sigh deeply as I trail my hand down her back, gripping her other cheek. “You don’t have to tell me.”
“I want to,” I admit softly. “I didn’t have the best childhood. My parents were both doctors and didn’t really love me the way I needed. They called me soft and needy since I couldn’t be on my own. You know, since I was just a kid. No matter what I did, I never got the attention I needed. So, when I was old enough, I looked for it in the form of women. I was desperate for love, for attention, and I’d accept the bare minimum just to feel important to someone. I was with some really bad women who used me, and as soon as I’d figure it out, they’d tell me all the things my parents said. That I was too needy and that I felt entirely too much. That I needed to man up.”
Her shoulders drop as she holds my gaze. “Dermot, I’m sorry.”
I shrug. “Every girl I was with cheated on me, and they weren’t short relationships. These were two, three years, and one was a five-year relationship—and in the end, I wasn’t enough. I started shutting down, not expressing how I felt and doing the bare minimum myself, how it was done to me. Andthen it just became too much of a hassle. I turned to books and spending time with my dog. I decided to be alone.” A tear rolls down her beautiful cheek, and I close my eyes. “Until you.”
“Dermot,” she says softly.
“I tried to stay away, but I couldn’t that night I came over.”
“I don’t want you to. And I hate that you’ve been treated like this. You are so amazing and funny—and beautiful inside and out. To know you’ve hidden yourself from what you want makes me sad.”
“It’s why I’ve been so hesitant in asking you out, because I wanted you to really know me so you could get out if you wanted.”
She searches my gaze, her aquamarine eyes full of kindness and empathy. “But what about what you want?”
I press my lips together. “It doesn?—”
“It does,” she says quickly, holding my gaze. “What do you want?”
