“I have a few.”
“A few?” Color me curious. I’m almost salivating just thinking about them and how much I want to explore them with my tongue.
He lowers his voice. “I have a Prince Albert, a frenum, and a lorum.”
“You have three?” I know what they all are because sometimes we get infected pierced penises in the ER.When good dicks go bad.
“Yeah. Why does that surprise you?”
“Because the puck bunny blogs only ever mentioned one.” Shit, I just gave myself away.
“Puck bunny forums?” He sounds horrified. “What the fuck? Please tell me you only stumbled on them and didn’t read them all the time or pay attention to what was written about me.” I hear the worry in his voice.
“I can’t tell you that because it would be a lie.”
“Well, shit.” The brief silence feels endless, and I swear I can hear his brain working overtime. “What did they say about me?”
“Um.” I hesitate. Although I can recite the dictionary since I have a great memory, or I wouldn’t be able to do my job. I’m like a walking encyclopedia.
“Be honest,” he pushes, knowing I’m stalling.
“Well. They said you were, you know, great in bed or whatever.” But I hate it because all I’ve ever wanted was to experience what it would be like to befucked into oblivion.Something all the girls said he was good at. “And pierced,” I tag on the end.
“What else?”
“And that, by their calculations, you’d slept with all the puck sluts who would follow you to every game, nightclub, and stand by the back doors at the arena by the time you had finished your fourth season with the Edmonton Eagles.”
“Shit. That sounds fucking terrible when you say it like that,” he replies shakily, sounding unhappy. Or maybe it’s disappointment. I can’t tell.
“Well, they didn’t call you ‘The Pierced Playboy’ for nothing, did they?” I try a bit of humor to lift his once-buoyant mood, but it disappears in an instant.
He stays quiet until he breaks the tension with, “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me for anything, and we all have a past, Leon.” I rest my hand on top of his where it lies between us. “And anyway, given that you haven’t dated anyone for a few years. I don’t think anyone can call you that anymore.”
Since he split up with Gigi, he’s been worryingly single.
Now I understand why. It’s all because of me. Even just knowing this now makes me feel giddy, my skin prickling, awakening flames within me. “So, circling back to the piercing, is it nice for the woman?”
He answers without hesitation. “Want to test it out for yourself?”
Hell, that didn’t go the way I thought it would.
Also, yes, please, because just the thought of him getting hard for me makes my nipples pucker against the fabric of my T-shirt.
“No.” I roll onto my back, suddenly a billion degrees hotter than the sun, and stare up into the darkness. “Yes. But not yet.”
Leon drops his voice when he leans in and whispers in my ear, “Well, you know where I am when the time is right.”
I throw a curveball question in because I’m eager to change the conversation and want to know something that has been bothering me, “Have you been out on any dates recently?”
“No.”
“Right.”
That makes sense because Leon has been a hermit for months, probably over a year. Maybe he doesn’t go on dates and just hooks up with women that none of us know about. He might even have a friends-with-benefits arrangement. I would never ask because the first and last time I did ask him if he had anyone special, it made me feel sick. It was as if a dozen worms were wriggling in the pit of my stomach. I remember it well; I still feel it now. My jealousy is still alive and well, like a living, breathing thing.
There’s a long stretch of silence before he speaks again, “I stopped dating because I would rather be alone than with someone who wasn’t you. My heart belongs to you, Erika. It always has.”
