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But she still didn’t want to answer this question. So she opened her mouth, but as she did, there was something about the way he tilted his head, just slightly, to the side.

She could feel it go through her, like he was daring her not to answer him one more time.

It wasn’t that she feared consequences, it was that she didn’t think she had it in her to lie directly to this man. And she didn’t particularly wish to question herself closely about why that was.

She swallowed, hard. “If I didn’t want it to go there, I wouldn’t have started this.”

He shifted on the bed again, coming down closer, so he could prop himself up on his elbow and get his face directly in hers. Then he nipped at her jaw and she made another noise that she’d never heard from herself before.

It was like he knew things about her body she didn’t. He could make her sound like someone else and even as he did that, she could feel the ripples of that flow everywhere.

“Kitty,” he said, there against the side of her face so she could feel her name on his lips as he said it, “I’m going to need you to answer the question.”

“I hate this question,” she said, and she frowned at him. “What does it matter?”

“Are you asked that a lot?”

“No,” she said. But he only waited. That patience of his seemed to spread out everywhere and pin her down when he wasn’t even doing that with his remarkably large male body. So she made herself say it, as quickly as possible so she could get it over with. “I haven’t done it before.”

She waited for what she assumed would be laughter. Some funny remark. Maybe even something scathing. Or maybe he would be so repulsed that someone who was within shouting distance of thirty could possibly not have done this a million times, like everyone else seemed to.

But all he did was nod. His expression didn’t change at all.

“Probably a reason for that,” he said. “Are you sure you want to change it today?”

“What I am sure of is that I didn’t want to have this conversation in the first place, never mind lingering on it,” Kitty replied, her frown deepening. “I don’t understand why we can’t just get on with things.”

That made him smile. She could feel his mouth on her neck. His teeth grazed her jaw again and suddenly it was as if she was prickling, everywhere.

“We can,” he said. “I promise. But first I’m going to have to hear you say it.”

She let out an aggrieved sort of sigh. “Fine. What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know.” He shifted again so he was settled more firmly between her legs. Then he reached out and tugged her knees up high, so that more of him was connected to more of her. That rolled through her and lit her up, everywhere. “Maybe something like… Yes, Finn, I want to have sex with you. Nice, easy, and to the point.”

She made a noise of pure frustration. “I’m lying in bed with you. I kissed you. Why do I have to make pronouncements on top of it?”

“Humor me.”

His voice was a growl and he already seemed like he was moving on, because his other hand was beneath her top now. And Kitty really didn’t understand how he was holding himself or how he was making it so that she could feel him everywhere, but she didn’t feel crushed against the bed.

Or maybe she wanted to be crushed against the bed.

“Finn,” she said, and her voice sounded breathy and not like hers at all, “I don’t want to say any of those things. But I want you to keep doing what you’re doing. And I want to go wherever it goes.”

“Thank you,” he said, and when he looked at her, there was a curve in his mouth that made her pulse pick up speed.

Finn pulled her pajama top up and off, then tossed it aside. He rolled them over so that she was on top of him and it was like gravity did the deciding for her. Because she couldn’t seem to keep herself from sinking into him and feeling him everywhere.

He guided her mouth back to his and then everything was the tempo he set. His mouth and all that heat. The taste of him. His wicked tongue.

Her breasts were pressed against his bare chest and that made her writhe against him until he laughed again. Then he turned them over once more, stripping off his boxer briefs and her pajama bottoms and panties as he went.

Kitty thought that surely he would simply plunge in and be done. She’d seen it in enough films to know how it was done.

But he didn’t. Instead, he seemed to take great pleasure in setting her on fire.

Finn put his mouth in places she wasn’t sure she could name on a chart. He smoothed his hands everywhere, using those hard palms and his clever fingers until she was arching up off of the bed.