Page 21 of Rent a Bad Boy

It doesn’t matter how hard I work, because something must move across my face that makes her groan and cover her eyes. “Don’t laugh at me,” she begs.

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re really close to it.”

“I’ll go slow.” I pry her hand away from her eyes and wait until she looks at me again. “I’ll take my time. And you can tell me to stop anytime you want to. No pressure.” And I mean it. This girl trusted me once already, and she’s trusting me again now. I’m not going to be the reason she stops trusting people.

“You say that, but...”

“I mean it.” Letting go of her wrist, I tuck a strand of hair behind her ear and let my fingers graze her jaw. Her breath catches. “I’ll make sure you’re comfortable. But you’re in control of this, okay? You really are.”

She takes a deep breath. It’s shaky. So is her hand when she places it in mine before I lead her up the stairs to my bedroom.

The bedroom is the same as the rest of the house. Clean, furnished with the bare minimum. A bed, nightstand, lamp. She looks around the room the way she looked around downstairs.

Then she looks at me, and I see the exact second she decides to stop being scared.

I take my time with her clothes because she deserves that. The sweater first. Slowly, so slowly, giving her room to back out at every step. But she doesn’t. She stands there and lets me, and when I pull the sweater over her head, she’s looking up at me through her glasses with those big brown eyes and those dimples, and I have to remind myself that going slow is the plan.

The jeans are next. I undo the button and slide them down so she can step out of them. Once she does, we both look down at the same time.

Chickens. Her underwear has chickens on it. Little cartoon ones in different poses. One of them is wearing sunglasses. Another one holds a guitar.

She closes her eyes. “I forgot I was wearing these.”

“Sure you did,” I tell her with a smirk.

“I have other underwear. Without poultry.”

I hook my thumbs into the waistband and pull her a little closer. “I like these.”

“You do not.”

“I like everything about you, dimples. Including whatever is happening on your underwear.” Holding her gaze, I ask, “Can I?”

She nods. I slide the underwear down her legs and toss them somewhere behind me. The chickens will survive.

She’s naked now, standing in my bedroom, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. They go to her sides, then cross over her chest, then drop again. This is definitely the first time she’s ever been totally naked in front of somebody. Even when she was partially naked, there was a lot less eye contact than there is now.

“Stop thinking,” I tell her.

“I can’t stop thinking. Thinking is what I do. It’s my whole⁠—”

My kiss shuts down whatever she was about to say, which was probably going to involve a metaphor or something. There’s nothing she needs to say with words, anyway. I understand how she’s feeling, which is why I’m gentle when my hands go to her waist, and I walk her backward before lowering her onto the bed. Slowly. With one hand behind her head so she won’t bump it on the headboard.

Her glasses. I reach up and slide them off her face, folding them carefully and setting them on the nightstand. She blinks up at me, unfocused, and murmurs, “Now I can’t see you.”

“You don’t need to see me. You just need to feel.” Then I press my mouth to her throat, and she gasps, her hands flying to my shoulders. I take my time there, kissing the spot just under her ear, dragging my lips down the side of her neck until I feel her pulse jump under my mouth. She smells like shampoo and something underneath it that’s just her, and I breathe her in while I work my way lower.

Her collarbone. The hollow at the base of her throat. I kiss across her chest, slow, and her breathing picks up when I get close to her tits, but I don’t touch them yet. I go around. Underneath. Along the curve. By the time I finally close my mouth over her nipple, she’s squirming. The choked little cry she makes almost makes me lose my patience completely.

But I don’t. Not this time. This time, I’m going to go slow with her if it kills me. Based on how hard I am right now, it might.

I give the other tit the same attention, using my tongue and my teeth—gently, barely there—until she’s arching into me, and her fingers are in my hair, and she’s making sounds she probably doesn’t know she’s making. I map her with my mouth. Her ribs. The soft skin of her stomach, where she tenses and then relaxes when I press a kiss just below her navel. The curve of her hip. The inside of her wrist when I lift her hand to my lips.

Every inch of her. I want every inch, and I take my time getting it.

By the time I settle between her legs, she’s trembling. Not from fear this time. Her thighs tense when I kiss the inside of one, then the other, working my way up in a way that’s probably torturous for her, but I can’t bring myself to rush.