“But I usedsomuch tongue. It was too much tongue wasn’t it?”
“I promise you used the perfect amount of tongue. That isn’t the issue.”
“Then what is the issue?”
“That I’m making you nervous, honey. I’m making you so nervous you’re sort of flapping your hands around. But you don’t need to—we can go slower.”
“We can?”
“I’m disturbed that you’re even asking that question. Yeah, we absolutely can, no problems. I mean Jesus, we’ve only known each other for half a week. Going slower than this is perfectly acceptable,” he said, which definitely made a lot of sense. It made so much sense that she nodded when he suggested they go back upstairs.
“I’m in the mood for a marathon of evil clown movies,” he said, and she couldn’t argue with that. Evil clowns sounded completely awesome, despite the odd thought that kept popping up behind her eyes. It happened when they settled on the couch, wrapped in blankets and cramming down popcorn. And it was there again during the dinner they had at the kitchen table, as he wiped a smear of sauce from her top lip.
It just came on her in a great wave, unstoppable and oh so sweet.
I don’t want to go slow.
Chapter Seven
She didn’t mean to say it. She had kept it in all through movie watching and dinner eating and taking him up to her bedroom to get sleepwear, and had thought she was in the clear. Then he’d put on those too-tight pajama bottoms and kind of modeled them for her a bit and that was pretty much the end. Her eyes just kept going to shapes she couldn’t quite make out and material that barely seemed to cover anything and suddenly she was speaking.
She was speakinga lot.
“What happens if...if I don’t really want to go slower? What if I like...most of what we did down in the basement, and want it to continue?” she asked, all in this big, brutal, embarrassing rush. She probably looked like a fool talking like that, and she knew her body language backed that label up. Her hands were trying to throttle each other. She was breathing way too hard.
Yet oddly she didn’t regret it. Instead she thought of the fireworks, flashing hot around her face. The way he’d touched her, as though he really liked all the things he found. It didn’t bother him that she was oddly shaped and sort of clumsy in places. He didn’t find her backside too big or her shoulders mannish—even though she’d always sort of thought they were.
He’d made her feel good.
And he continued to do so.
“In that case, you can simply tell me the parts you liked, and we’ll do them,” he said, as though it were nothing. Guys did this sort of thing all the time. They respected boundaries and didn’t mind it when women panicked, and then they made offers like this. Of course they did. She’d totally never read a thousand books about men doing the opposite. She hadn’t the faintest clue why she sounded so incredulous.
Except she did know, she did know.
“Are you serious?” she asked, because even in the romantic stories the men were not full of the kind of understanding he had. They always seemed rough and brutal, in ways that made her worry. Was that just how things were supposed to be? It had to be the way things were supposed to be. It was never presented as something abnormal.
The way he behaved was the abnormal thing.
It was just that it didn’tfeelabnormal.
It felt wonderful, to hear someone say—
“Yeah, totally. It’s kind of a turn-on, actually.”
“So I can just...say what I’d like.”
“I would love it if you said what you like.”
“Even if what I say is really weird?”
“Especiallyif what you say is really weird,” he said, and suddenly her head was buzzing with a billion things she might be able to do. She could definitely kiss him more, for a start. She could kiss him a lot, and he’d probably never demand that she let him do loads of other stuff. Then once she’d had her fill of kissing, maybe she could progress to something else.
Maybe she could touch him.
Would he be okay with her touching him?
“Well I was thinking...I could possibly just do things to you. I mean not if you’re uncomfortable with that, obviously. But if you were, then I might like that.”
