“I think you overestimate my acting abilities,” she grumbles.
“Jesus Christ, do you want to make lover boy jealous or not?”
With a whiny huff, Staten nudges her nose into my neck, barely brushing the flesh as she makes a strange sweeping motion back and forth. There’s way too much space between our bodies to make this convincing, and she’s halfway to recoiling like she’ll contract some contagious skin disease.
“You’re not convincing enough,” I growl.
I can practically hear her roll her eyes. “Oh, sor-ry that I don’t want to make out with the side of your sweaty neck.”
“It’snotsweaty.”
Tension—and not the good kind—hovers on the horizon like a thunderhead intent on breaking, waiting to shower the scorched earth in vicious sheets of rain. She doesn’t proceed with the nuzzling.
“Why am I doing all the work? You’re the man in the relationship.”
“That’s a bit outdated, don’t you think? I thought you were a feminist.”
Staten glares daggers my way, finally taking control of the situation and pressing her boobs flush against my chest. Her soft body against my hard one is the best thing I’ve ever felt in my twenty-one years of life, and my fucking dick is about to break through the seam of my pants if the hem of her dress rides any higher.
“Grab my ass,” she demands brusquely, not bothering with saccharine supplication.
The limited brain cells ping-ponging around in my skull malfunction. “Excuse me?”
“Did I stutter? Just do it. I watched this once in a movie.”
“That’s the extent of your research? That you watched it one time in some crappy rom-com?”
“I’m giving you a free pass to touch my butt. Are you seriously going to decline?”
Fuck, she knows me too well. I think I need to attend some twelve-step program to get my horniness under control. No substance in the world compares to the blackout I experience post-Staten. Also, no guy in their right mind would ever say no to her, especially not under suchdirecircumstances.
I brace myself with an exhale, then slowly slide my hand down the length of her back until it rests lightly over her butt. No grip. No squeeze. Just a friendly…pat? Maybe?
Clearly dissatisfied with my amateur display of affection, her tongue is a blade halfway drawn, her voice vibrating at a low frequency that rattles through my bones. “Are you eventouchingit?”
“Of course I am,” I scoff. “I’m being gentle. I’m not going to randomly grope you.”
It’s a miracle my dick is behaving so well right now. I need to keep that monster at bay.
“Dear God, that’s rich.”
“What are you talking about?”
Like Mentos in a Coke bottle, I’m on the receiving end of the fizzle-to-spillover pipeline before I’ve even realized a chain reaction occurred. Except Staten’s anger is no diluted soda, and she channels all the light from the room with a potent shot of indignation.
“I bet you’ve slapped half of the girls’ asses here. Why am I any different?”
Ouch. I mean, she’s not wrong, but still.
I don’t…I don’t view myself asworthyto touch Staten, whether it’s in a platonic or romantic way. It’s going to sound cliché, but she’s different than all the other girls I’ve been with. She makes me want to be a better person, and I’ll be damned if I sink back into my old ways.
It feels like the butterflies in my belly all have miniature knives, and my heart is being quartered in four different directions. I was never an overthinker before Staten, yet, as we straddle the threshold between two worlds—pretend play and its ugly, distant cousin, reality—my overactive thoughts run in the background. A CPU overload; the crash of a computer.
“You just are,” I say gruffly, refusing to elaborate.
Staten sighs, a frown pulling at the corner of her lips. “Please, Knox. Can’t you just…squeeze it a little? I give you my full permission.”
Fuck me. The girl of my dreams is begging me to squeezeher ass. Whose balls did I suck to exist in this alternate timeline of all things hot and holy?
