Page 66
AS SOON AS we got into my room I threw myself on the bed, reaching my limbs out to take up as much room as possible. “How huge is the bed now?”
The sound of her muffled laugh was music to my ears.
She took care of me in much the same way I’d handled her when she was drunk, with patient attention.
I kept my eyes closed and let her tuck me in.
Silence reigned for a time and when she spoke it made my breath catch in my throat.
“You’re not him,” she said with quiet vehemence. “You’re nothing like your father.”
I felt a little lost, my mind warring with how what she said made me feel, how deep and fundamental of a cut it was to have her talk to me like that. Like she cared about me. Like she believed in me. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked her.
“Because I think he has you convinced that you’re the same, and you’re not.”
I looked at her and our eyes locked, me lying down, her sitting at my hip, leaning slightly over me, and we shared a moment of almost painful intimacy.
Of course I ruined it. “Is it uncivilized for me to ask you how soon you’d like to be fucked into the mattress?”
She took that better than I’d expected. “Impossible sex fiend,” she said lightly and walked away.
She was settling down on the other side of the bed when I asked, “Are you really not the least bit attracted to me?”
“Not even a little bit. You’re hideous.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Prove it.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let me kiss you.”
“Excuse me?” she sounded genuinely shocked. Me talking about sex didn’t faze her but a kiss gave her pause. She understood me too well.
“I will not excuse you. Just one kiss.”
“Excuse me?” she repeated.
“Just let me kiss you once, and then tell me you don’t want me. Then I can actually believe you and move on from this obsession. You can touch me too, though you don’t have to. You call the shots. Let me kiss you once, and you get to decide what comes next.”
“No sex,” she said, like it was an absolute.
“Whatever,” I said dismissively, like I wasn’t even perfectly consumed with wanting that. “There’s plenty to do before you ever get to sex. Things I’m particularly good at.” I came up on an elbow and wagged my eyebrows at her.
“Only one kiss. Nothing else.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t be so hasty. A least let me kiss you before you go making big decisions like that.”
“You’re drunk. We can’t go there when one of us is drunk. That’s one of your rules, right?”
“You’re getting that all mixed up. I can be drunk.”
“Because you’re a man?”
“Because I’m me. Because I consented before I was drunk. Because I’m always willing where you’re concerned. Everything’s on the table for me when it comes to you. Carte blanche.”
