Positively charmed, I say, “Are we going to need to take medicine every time we kiss?”
She flinches, sitting heavily back down in her chair. “No.”
I nod, sagely. “Just the first time, then. All consecutive times we’ll have already been way too up in one another’s germs for it to matter.”
She rolls her eyes. “No.” Breath enters her as she straightens the Ever or Never sheet before her. “No more kissing.”
My heart genuinely sinks, but I keep my tone casual. “Mistress, there are kinder ways to kill a man.”
“I’m sure there are.”
I spin the pretty pink pen I used to fill out my answers in a circle on the table. “You’d not use them, though, would you? You want to watch me suffer. You’d like to hear me beg.” I pause, then add, “More than I already have tonight.”
The pink in her cheeks tips toward crimson, and she frowns at me before reading off, “Has your partner ever stolen something.Yes. You have. You’re a thief of scones.”
First of all, I asked. Second of all, I did say out loudI thieved, so I guess I can’t exactly argue. “I also putyes.”
“Ha.” She smiles. “I haven’t. I’m a perfect, law-abiding—”
“My lips beg to disagree.”
She chokes on her words.
I grow warm and find myself in a strange state of thorough happiness as I murmur, “Good thing you’re a fan of me begging, huh?”
Voice wavering, she proceeds valiantly, “Has your partner ever gone skinny dipping. I putyes. Probably in public, too. At a beach, I bet.”
“As if I’d ever put on such a show like that. Or go outside. To abeach. The sun is much too sun there. Since I am answering honestly in a desperate attempt to prove I know something about you…I put no. You strike me as…almosta perfect, law-abiding citizen.”
She cuts her gaze off me.
I wait.
She coughs.
“You’re joking,” I say.
“I don’t know if it counts.”
“You’re joking.”
“I was, like, seven or something. And! For the record! I almost drowned.”
“Youhave gone swimming naked?” Shut the front door. I am so glad she didn’t kick me out.Soglad.
“Again,” she grits, “I was like seven! Mom, Dad, Mae, and I were on vacation. The hotel had a pool. I’m pretty sure I was on the verge of both heatstroke and stupidity. My wet swimsuit was driving me crazy, so.” She fidgets. “I…took it off. Along with the somewhat important floatation devices known, scientifically, as…” Her voice grows quiet. “…water wings.” Eyes lowered, she painfully and adorably says, “I then tried to get back to swimming, because I have never in my life found myself in possession of a brain cell.”
“Wow.”
Her dear face scrunches. “I know. I was an idiot.”
“You went skinny dipping in a public pool.” I frame my cheeks with my hands and lean against the table, enraptured. “That’ssuchbad girl behavior. I… Why, I’msmitten.”
She cringes. “Stop looking at me like that. Put your hands down. You arenota school girl.”
“For you, I could be.”
“Wha—” She rustles her dark hair. “What does thatevenmean?”
