“Yeah.”Deep breath.“Really.”
“Great.”He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it, then let me go.
I smiled at him before turning back around to get my boots on—and taking a second to think through what the fuck had just happened.I was happy.Obviously I was fucking happy, because he was hot and nice and made good apologies.But I was also concerned, because why had I even thought he’d default back to the way things used to be?Everything he’d said, done tonight was…
Not enough to outweigh the past.The weight I’d put on the past?
Jesus Christ, I was really a hot mess.I sighed as I finished lacing up my boots and said, “I was trying to explain that anyone who thinks you’re disappointing is a moron, but I ended up talking myself into being kind of into you.Jesus.”
“I mean.”He shrugged.“Again: Both is good.”
I stood and leaned down to look him in the eye.“You’re paying.”
He held up both hands and said the magic words again: “Anything you want, Diego.”
Chapter 3: DIEGO
Look,Itookmymeds that morning, but I still couldn’t fucking concentrate.Looking at my backside in the mirror, the backs of my thighs out all the way up to the creases below my ass-cheeks, my favorite little skirt.Imagining working in a plug so I could just flip the skirt up and show him I was ready to go.Grab him by the balls right from the second he arrived, fuck him stupid before he had a chance to gain the upper hand, spend the rest of the date knowing he was cock-struck and even if I never saw him again, he’d wish I would.
Genuinely unhinged.
“What kind of slut are you?”I asked myself in the mirror.I ripped off the skirt and grabbed a pair of underwear—cute ones, obviously, because there was no way I wasn’t gonna be gagging for it the second I saw Taran Kovacs.Plaid pants with buckles on them, old school punk wear, super tight—still a little weird, a lot of my personality.Cute tank top that barely covered my belly.
Yeah, okay.Sexy but untouchably cool.That was the vibe.
Not exactly hinged, but halfway there.Better.
A knock at my door, and bitch princess Strawberry Shortcake jumped six feet into the air before scurrying under the bed.“It’s okay, baby,” I told her, but it was for me too.
Jesus fuck, had I really been considering jumping on his dick the second he walked through my door?What kind of desperate little bitch had I become?Power play, my sad ass.Pathetic.
I checked my fit in the full-length mirror behind the door, took a deep breath, and opened.There he stood in a simple, devastatingly well-fitting button-down and flat fronts, eyes bright behind those ridiculously hot glasses.Taran smiled, deploying the dimple, and held out one hand—which had a single, long-stemmed red rose in it.“Hey.”
I’d had plenty of time to think about the last time I’d seen him before he left for college.He’d apologized very prettily for it last night, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I owed him one too.The more I had to remember it hadn’t been his dick that I’d missed, wanted, cried over.
Okay, that too.But mostly, it’d just beenhim.And now, like a teenage dream, he was standing on my doorstep with a flower in his hand.
“You’re fucking ridiculous,” I told him, grinning like a dumbass as I accepted the rose.
He just grinned right back.“Yeah, but you knew that.”
I snorted and turned, gesturing for him to follow me into the apartment.I needed a second to compose my face, which was probably all heart-eyes and bloody nose at this point.
He closed the door behind him.“Where’s your cat?”
“She’s hiding.If you come back a dozen times, shemightgrace you with her presence,” I told him, digging through a cupboard for something to put the rose in.God, he was so het-presenting, but in a stupidly sweet way.Ugh, this was such a bad idea.
Maybe I should fuck him right now after all?
No.No, that’s insane.
“Where do you wanna go for a drink?”he asked.
“The Warren has good cocktails.”And I couldn’t afford them, usually.
“I like that place.They have a barrel-aged Manhattan.”
I shot him a glance over my shoulder.The Warren was a weird little place on the corner beside the biggest theater in the Cultural District.I wasn’t sure who went there on a normal day, but on the day of a show, it was a lot of that crowd.
