“You probably just need to give it a minute. We can always try again later.”
She went to say something in response. But then she saw his expression, with just that hint of amusement to it. And suddenly everything he’d said turned on its head. It took on another meaning entirely, of the sort you might offer to a man having performance issues.In the bloody bedroom.
“You fucking arsehole,” she burst out.
But he just shrugged.
“Relaxed you, didn’t it?”
“Honestly it made me even more tense than before.”
“You can’t get away with that with me, bookworm. I can hear your heart rate. I can see every minute change to your body, from the softening of the muscles in your shoulders, to the slight tension around your lips that tells me you wanted to smile. You wanted to laugh even. But you held it back, to stop me having the satisfaction,” he said, his expression a picture ofgot you.
Even though he hadn’t.
“So you’d be satisfied by my amusement, then.”
“You say that if it seems so strange that anyone would be.”
“Not anyone. Just you.”
He tilted his head on one side. “Liar,” he said.
So confident about it that she couldn’t try a denial.
“Can you hear that in my heartbeat too, can you?”
“Sometimes, yes. When you’re most scared of the truth.”
“So tell me what exactly you think the truth is, in this situation.”
“That you can never imagine you make someone happy. That they might want to see you laugh and be pleased if they manage. That your delight is their delight, your pleasure is their pleasure, their dreams are whatever makes your dreams come true. The very idea is alien to you, impossible. Even if it was right in front of your face, you would struggle to see it,” he said, hands spreading as he did. One shoulder almost lifting in a shrug. Just as casual as everything else he’d told her.
But this one left her breathless.
She couldn’t even hide the shake in her voice when she replied.
“Maybe if someone actually told me these things, I wouldn’t,” she tried to shoot back. But it lacked the tone she wanted. It sounded like sadness over scorn. Vulnerability over a sense that she didn’t really care.
And of course he hooked his claws into the softest things.
“And exactly how do you think that hoped-for conversation would go?”
“The whole point is that I have no idea. You canseeI have no idea.”
“Yes, but you can imagine, surely. You must have imagined someone saying your name, soft as fur against your skin. ‘Mina,’ they might whisper. Over and over—‘Mina, Mina, Mina,’ likesomething they were forbidden to speak, and so now they must say it a thousand times,” he said, low enough that she could hardly hear him. She almost took a step forward just to get every word, every use of a name he had never spoken aloud, as he spun this strange little scenario.
And only stopped herself at the last second.
She stepped back from the edge, instead.
“That doesn’t seem like much for someone trying to convince me.”
“Well, it depends what you want to be convinced of. If it was just the idea of someone liking your delight, a name might be enough. But if you needed to know that they craved your pleasure, I can imagine it would be more. A simplelet me make you feel good. A soft sigh of bliss, when they do. When they watch your eyes grow heavy, and your lips part, and—”
“Okay,stop.”
She didn’t mean to say it so frantically.
