“I think ‘pretty’ is more accurate, but sure. He’s attractive if you’re into that sort of thing.”
“That sort of thing?” What does that mean? Six, with his symmetrical boy-next-door face and perfectly styled dark hair, belongs on a magazine. One labelled “I’m just here to fuck shit up and eat your lollipops,” but a magazine, nonetheless. Maybe one for sword owners. Bianca is sexier than he is.
“If someone tries to order me around in bed, I’m more likely to punch them than get hard.”
What does he look like in bed?It’s the one thing I don’t know about him. The only door closed to me because I’ve never tried to open it. Does he look different covered in sweat from sexual exertion in comparison to sweat from other physical activities? I’ve seen pleasure in his gaze, what I take from him without giving back. It’s not the same as mutual desire, is it? A shared experience he’s had with others, but not with me.
“Has someone tried to do that before?” I ask. I’ll need a name so I can find them. Cut off their hands for touching what doesn’t belong to them. Cut out their tongue for daring to give orders to a man that should only ever take them from me.
He doesn’t answer straightaway, looking at me like he can figure out where I’m leading him if he just stares hard enough.Idon’t even know where I’m leading us. Rarely anything thatcomes out of my mouth in his presence is planned. Everywhere else, words spoken are calculated to give me the result that I want. Actions speak louder than words, and my words are finely honed weapons. With him? None of the rules apply.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Am Isure?” he asks incredulously. A muscle in his jaw twitches. “I’d remember. Why, you want a list?”
“Of what?”
“All the people I’ve slept with.”
Fuck, no. That’s a lot of blood on my hands. Even Hunter and Maverick would have a hard time sweeping that under the rug. I’d become the very thing that I hunt, and I would do it without a single regret.
“Do you wantmine?” I counter. I’d be hard-pressed to remember any of the women, the very few of them there have been. Not what they looked like, what they smelled like, or how it felt. Not even their names. He’s the only thing that occupies my thoughts. The desire to be with anyone else is non-existent and has been for a long time.
I think about him when I’m with him, when I’m alone, every moment of the day.
“Thinking of you with anyone else makes me want to set fire to the entire city,” Kendrick says bluntly. “What the fuck are we talking about this for? There better be a good goddamn reason.”
“It bothers me.” Like I want to crawl out of my own skin.
“What does?”
“That other people have touched you.”
“You’ve touched me.”
It’s not the same. I don’t touch him like they did. It’s never bothered me this much before. He’s with me now, and that won’t ever change. The murderous thoughts about past partners havealways been brief, tempered by the knowledge that they’re in the past, and the only future for Kendrick is me.
Lately, it hasn’t been enough. I want toownhim. Come over his chest and rub it into his skin until he smells like me. There’s nothing sexual in it; it’s ownership. A warning to everyone else that he’s off-limits. That he’s mine.
“Spence?”
“Do you miss sex?”
Kendrick gets back into the car and crowds me, his forearm braced against my headrest. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Do you?” I insist. Does he stay awake at night thinking about it, wishing I would loosen the reins so that he can go and find some piece of ass to fuck to relieve the tension? My knuckles go white around the steering wheel. I need to start following him around so that I can stop that from happening. Put a tracker on his phone. He’s lucky I haven’t already.
“No, Spence, I don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, are youtryingto piss me off right now?”
“Is it working?” Being angry at me means he’s focusing solely on me, and I’ll take whatever I can get. “Why won’t you answer my question?”
“I fucking did.”
