Page 77 of The Casanova Complex

I chuckle. “Is that embarrassing enough for you to believe me?”

When she shrugs, I add, “I was about to come just from you in my lap, from tasting your lips. It has nothing to do with not wanting you. It’s…”

Fuck, I can’t believe how the night started and where it’s ended up now.

Any of it.

Including the fact that I’m about to say this.

“I’m… celibate,” I mutter sheepishly, watching as her eyes go wide and her mouth falls open. “I mean, obviously, I wasn’t always, but I haven’t touched anyone outside of you in the last seven months. Nothing.”

Silence stretches between us, weighing heavily in the air as she just stares at me.

For so long that I’m starting to fucking sweat.

“Wait, you’re serious? You’re actually serious?” is what she finally says, and I nod.

“A hundred percent.”

Merritt blinks, disbelief still written on her face.

“Why?”

The million-dollar question.

I shrug. “At the end of last year, I just had an awakening, I guess you could say, and I’ve spent the summer working on myself. Trying to be a better version of myself. I want to be a better man, and this is just part of it. I want sex to be with someone I care about. I want it to be different from what my past has been.”

She looks at me like I’ve grown another head and just told her that mythical creatures are real.

I don’t blame her, really. I’ve got a reputation around campus, one I’m well aware of.

It’s no one’s fault but my own.

What I don’t tell her is that this is about more than just having sex with someone I care about. It’s about finding someone who sees me for the man I want to be. A relationship that is real, and intimate, and means something to me. Means everything to me.

“Wow,” Merritt whispers, tilting her chin up. “That was not at all what I expected you to say.”

I nod. “Yeah. I just don’t want to be the guy that I was anymore. The one who everyone thinks they know.” Reaching up, I shove my hand through my hair as realization hits me in the center of my chest. “After everything I just learned from you about that night… that’s exactly the kind of guy I never want to be again. The guy who carelessly chases after something that feels good and ends up hurting someone with his actions. I’m sorry, Merritt. It’s⁠—”

“It’s okay, I get it. I understand now,” she says, interrupting me. “It was for the best that we don’t break any rules. This is for show and so that you win your games, right? I’m simply the good luck charm.”

The curl of her lip makes me feel only slightly less of a complete fucking tool, but only slightly.

She has no idea just how bad I want to break every single one of her rules and mine.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MERRITT

How is it even possible to have that many abs?

An obscenely vivid picture of me dragging my tongue down the shallow dip between the chiseled muscles flits through my head, and I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to force it away to no avail.

My thighs press together when my clit begins to throb, and I groan, tossing my phone onto my bed and out of reach.

Far, far away.

So I can’t pick it back up and do something stupid yet again, like count each of Bennett’s abs on his social media pictures and fantasize about licking my way down them.