“Maybe.”Ugh.I stare at my traitorous bottle of Patron for loosening my lips and deteriorating my brain.
His hand dips further to my ass, and he pulls me so close that I realize I’m sitting on his lap, my legs sprawled to the side. He combs the hair off my neck and places a light kiss on my nape. He watches how my body shivers from the touch, warms from the alcohol, and dizzies from his closeness.
“You wanted to play this game,” he reminds me. “Somewhere in your heart, you wanted these things to be revealed.”
I did. And that’s why I had the alcohol. To build my courage. I take another small sip, my lips wet with the liquor. He rubs his thumb across them, slowly. As my breath hitches, he puts his thumb in his mouth, tasting the tequila.
“My strangest fantasy?” I repeat, studying him like he’s the most interesting specimen in the universe. To me, he most definitely is. When the answer suddenly hits me, I pale. I’m not even close enough to beingthatdrunk to tell him. But I can’t lie. I hate cheaters so damn much. “Ask me something else.”
“No,” he says, not making this easy for me. He rests a hand on the back of my neck, so near now that his chest touches mine. He inhales strongly, my body closing in on him. The tension winds me in a taut strand, the place between my legs beginning to pulse for touch. He kisses right outside of my lips. “Answer me,” he murmurs with a deep, husky voice.
“Define strange,” I breathe.
He’s abandoned his wine bottle somewhere. And I don’t even care to search for it. “Not normal to society’s traditional standards.”
Yes, my fantasy is definitely abnormal. I’ve thought about it a few times before, and I have no idea why it aroused me. “I shouldn’t be turned on by it.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He brushes my hair out of my face again, his gaze steadily and slowly skimming every inch of me, heating me up more than the alcohol now.
“I think my fantasy is weird, even for your standards.”
He stops stroking me and his eyebrow arches, pure curiosity pouring through his gaze. “Now you have to tell me.”
“I picture you.” My vocal cords freeze.
“Good. Keep going.”
I smack his arm.
“I picture you as well,” he says. “I have since I was seventeen.”
“Really?”
“It wasn’t fair to the other people I was with, but you’ve been the most fascinating person to me. And no one could really compare in my mind.”
I rephrase his words and hearI love you. Even ifhewon’t ever say them. This proclamation inflates my courage. And I sit up a little straighter on his lap. I lick my lips and continue, “I picture you and me.”
“We’re getting somewhere close, I suspect.”
I glare. “We can move on if you don’t want to hear it.”
“Rose,” he says affectionately, “I would sit here for eighty more years and listen to you talk. I love the sound of your voice and every meaning behind your words.”
“So you love my voice but you don’t love me?”
He grips my butt hard, and a gasp catches in my throat. “Maybeyoushould be labeled smartass after we fuck.”
I actually laugh.
He smiles with me. “Tell me,” he whispers, his lips tickling my ear. “N’ai pas peur.”Don’t be afraid.
I swallow. “I may not like it, even though I’ve imagined it.”
He groans, half in frustration, the other half in arousal. He breathes more heavily than before. “You’re killing me.”
He hardens beneath me. I really, really love that power. “Maybe I should draw out the suspense then andnevertell you.”
“No.” He cups my face in a strong hand. “If you could live inside my mind right now, you’d realize how crazy you’re making me.”
