Sin With Me

53

“That thing you call ‘foreplay’ was the best s*x I’ve ever had.”

He sags with relief. “Jesus. f**k. You scared the hell out of me!”

“Are you Amish?”

He makes a face. “Do you see me driving a horse and buggy and churning my own butter?”

“Then why are you saying we shouldn’t have s*x for thirty days?”

“Because I like you,” he answers simply. “I like you . . . a lot.”

We stare at each other. Then I say, “Okay. I get it. You’re respecting me. You’re showing me respect. Right?”

“Right.” “Respect noted. Now I think we should bang.”

He makes another face. “Bang? And you have a problem with my vocabulary? You sound like a teenage boy!”

A terrible thought hits me. I cover my mouth with my hands.

Brody asks, “What?”

I whisper, “Do you have herpes? Do you need time for the sores to clear up?”

He looks at the ceiling and sighs. “Grace. No. I do not have herpes. Or any other STD, thank you very much.”

Out of options for this ridiculous conversation and at my wit’s end with how to get him to change his mind, I throw my hands in the air. “I haven’t gone without s*x for a month since I was eighteen years old!”

He grins at me. “Trollop. Knew it.”

“Can’t you find some other way to respect me that doesn’t involve denying me my favorite thing in the world?”

He c***s his head. “s*x is your favorite thing in the world?”

Now that sounded bad. I try to backtrack, only it gets worse.

“d**k is my favorite thing in the world.”

Brody’s grin reappears. “Can I just take a moment here to say that you’re my dream woman?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose between two fingers. “This isn’t going in the direction I’d hoped.”

“Seriously, the fact that those words would even leave your mouth makes me so happy you don’t even know.”

“Brody—”

“Nope.”

“Nope what?”

“Nope, we’re not having s*x for a month, and we’re not negotiating. I told you before: I want to get to know you before we do it.”

“May I remind you, Kong, we already did it?”

“Not all the way,” he says, sounding very reasonable. “There was no penetration. No outie in the innie. So technically we didn’t do it. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I’m just wondering what planet you lived on before you came to earth.”

He pulls me onto his lap and kisses my cheek. “Uranus.”

I dissolve into laughter. I collapse against his chest and laugh until I’m hoarse, and then I laugh some more.

Brody falls back onto the bed, taking me with him. He rolls on top of me. Then—bastard!—he starts to tickle me.

“Nooo!” I scream, writhing helplessly. “No tickling! I hate tickling!”

“Say ‘we’re not having s*x for a month,’ and I’ll stop,” he says, digging his fingers into my ribs.

“That’s blackmail!”

He wiggles his fingers into my belly. I scream again, trying to roll out from under him but he’s too heavy.

“Say it, Slick, or you get the tickle treatment forever.”

“I’m going to kill you!”

Wiggling fingers poke into my side.

“Okay, I give! Uncle! No s*x for a month!”

Smiling, his hair falling into his eyes, Brody gazes down at me. “Deal. The clock starts now. One month, no boning.”

I ask breathlessly, “But we can still do the foreplay thingy, right?”

He purses his lips like he’s thinking, and I groan. “Brody!”

He grins. “Only kidding. Yes, we can still do the foreplay thingy. I’m not a total masochist.”

“No, you’re a total sadist!”

“Speaking of which . . .” He wraps a hand firmly around my wrist and presses it to the bed. Ducking his head, he whispers into my ear, “You like being restrained, don’t you?”

His voice has that dark, dominant tone that makes my pulse quicken.

“Do you want total honesty here?”

“Yes,” he answers instantly.

“Like, radical honesty?”

“Yes. That’s exactly what I want from you from now on: radical honesty. Go.”

“I’ve always been the one doing the restraining.”

Brody lifts his head and considers me with his brows pulled together. “You mean you like to be on top or something?”

“No, Brody. I like to be the top.”

Understanding crosses his face. His smile comes on slow and sultry. “So you’re not only a wanton little trollop, you’re a wanton little dominatrix trollop.”

“It’s not like I’m dressing up in latex corsets and beating anybody with a riding crop. I just like being the one in control, sexually and otherwise.” I hesitate for only a second before deciding our new policy of radical honesty should be honored. “I mean, I did. Up to now. Before you. But now I think losing control might be even more exciting . . . because I think I might be able to trust you to catch me when I fall.”

He examines me in silence, his eyes burning with intensity. Then he says quietly, “You have no idea how good that makes me feel.”

My heartbeat goes haywire. “You have no idea how good you make me feel. But if I’m wrong about you catching me, I’ll sic Marcus on you.”

Brody pretends to be shot in the heart with an arrow and flops onto his back, clutching his chest. I jump on top of him and pepper kisses all over his face as he makes a dramatic show of expiring.