But inside my embarrassment something else formed—a kernel of anger. Red and glowing.
“That was personal,” I said, my jaw tight, as I moved away from him. “You shouldn’t have looked at it. You shouldn’t.” Maybe if I said that enough, he’d forget what he saw, erase it from his mind.
“I know I shouldn’t have,” he said, gravel in his voice. “And I’d like to say I feel terrible for invading your privacy. But . . .”
I furrowed my brow, confused. “You don’t feel bad? Then why are you telling me?”
He shook his head. “I wanted to feel bad, but I couldn’t find it in me to.”
I shot him a stare. “Then why are you telling me?” I asked again, more bite in my tone. I stood, heading to the kitchen to clean the counter—anything to get away from the embarrassment of my most private fantasies revealed, right alongside my deepest secret.
His footsteps echoed across the floor, and in seconds he moved behind me. “I’m telling you because of number ten.” His words rumbled across the air.
I knew what number ten was.
Number ten was the linchpin of the whole list.
Number ten would be the hardest item to accomplish.
His body was inches from mine, so close I could inhale his scent, like the winter woods, and a sliver of desire thrummed in my veins, surprising the hell out of me.
The hairs on my neck stood on end. My mind went on high alert, racing through possibilities as quickly as I’d cycled through fantasies about Marco and Evangeline.
Was he about to say what I thought he was?
But Adam wasn’t that kind of guy, I reminded myself.
I waited for him to speak next, to fill the pulsing silence, even though the noises in my head were so damn loud they nearly drowned out any words.
Adam dipped his face closer, brushing his mouth over my ear, and whispered, “Ask me, Nina. I’ll be the man to do all those things to you for the first time.”
He spoke in a command. Like me asking him was an instruction. No, it was an order.
He’d given me a command.
That shiver turned into a full-body shudder.
6
Nina
Adam was never in the cards.
For all the reasons I laid out in my head when Miss Sheridan had inquired. She wasn’t the only one in my life who’d nudged me about Adam. My friend Lily had at her wedding, tugging me aside and asking when I was going to go for it. Your wedding is making you loopy, I’d teased. My friend Kate had simply arched a dubious brow.
Had they seen something in him I hadn’t?
What would I see if I turned around?
Would I see sunshine, as I always saw with this man?
Or would I see midnight? Another side of Adam?
Part of me was terrified; another part was thrilled.
My mind raced through the myriad possibilities—what would happen to us if I asked him to bite me, have me, take me? Discover me on the bed and watch me touch myself? For once in my life, I wanted to be the one who was seen. I wanted to be watched. I craved the chance to say things like watch me strip, watch me tease, watch me taunt. Then I’d add, Tie me up and make me take it hard.
With Adam?
My pulse beat between my legs, the first sign.
But there were so many what-ifs to Adam as number ten.
We were frozen, poised on the edge of a building, staring down at the ground below, so far away. If we jumped, would there be a safe landing?
I licked my lips and pushed out words. It felt as if I were speaking for the first time. “What happens if I ask you?”
It was an open-ended question. He could answer it in many ways.
A low growl was his first reply, a dirty hum that sent a new wave of tingles all over me.
His mouth was dangerously close to my ear as he gave the rest of his answer. “Then I’d say yes. Then we’d work through your list. I’d fulfill all your filthy, fantastic dreams. You’d say no whenever you wanted. You’d set the rules, you’d set the boundaries, and I’d respect them,” he said, and I trembled from the intensity of his words, the depth of his understanding. I shuddered, too, from his touch, because as he spoke, he slid a hand down my side, curling it over my hip. His touch was electric. Sparks thrummed through me.
“And what happens after I set the boundaries?” I asked, breathless and so eager, too, for more of his answers.
With a rasp I’d never heard from him before, he said, “Then I’ll tell you to get on your knees and suck me so deep you feel it in the back of your throat. Or I’ll bend you over the table and tie your wrists above your head so I can have my wicked way with your sweet pussy. So I can tease you and taunt you and deny your orgasms till I say you’re good and ready to come.”
A gust of breath escaped my lips. My knees wobbled. Those were my fantasies. Those were on my list. He’d read it, and he wasn’t running. He was closing in on me, wanting. I could feel his desire. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Adam was turning me on in ways I’d never anticipated.
But dirty words weren’t enough. Sharing desires wasn’t sufficient either.
I needed to know we’d be okay. I needed to be certain we’d stay friends. That mattered more than this exquisite ache between my legs.
“But what happens to us?” I asked, while I longed to grab the counter, bend my body into an L, and beg him to yank down my jeans.
“What happens after dark, stays after dark,” he said, a play on the city’s famous motto. “Sex is sex, and friendship is friendship, and we call the shots. We set the ground rules. Here’s mine: Consent comes first. You come second, third, fourth, and many more times. You come hard, you come relentlessly, you come when I say you come, you come again and again on my face, on my cock, on your toys, tied up, pushed down, with my fingers in you, however the hell you want. Then I come. Then we stay friends. How’s that for ground rules?”
I quivered, and the ache between my legs turned into a throb. A demanding, heavy throb that insisted on being answered.
Maybe Adam was in the cards.
Maybe he was all the cards.
“Promise we stay friends?” I asked, my voice featherlight and laced with burgeoning desire—desire I hadn’t seen coming. Desire I’d never expected.
What was happening to me? Had Evangeline and Marco’s passion unleashed a lust monster in me? Had Aphrodite done this? Sent my fantasies into overdrive with my best guy friend?
Adam.
Charming, clever, thoughtful Adam.
Adam was the guy next door.
But tonight, he was the man gripping my hip, digging his fingers hard into my flesh.
My cells cried out for his touch.
For his command.
And for his rough edge that I hadn’t known existed.
He was showing it to me, just as I was revealing to him my secrets. He hadn’t asked either—hadn’t inquired why I was a virgin. It wasn’t a state secret, but I didn’t want to serve up my choices at this moment. I’d share that story with him another time.
“Damn straight we stay friends,” he growled. “Isn’t that what we were at dinner? Isn’t that what we are all the time?”
“Yes. Yes, we are,” I said with no reservations.