AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I can’t. I can’t do that,” I tell him, and his face breaks out into an open smile. It’s the first real smile I’ve seen on his face.
“Didn’t you say you’d do anything, Bellezza?”
Me agreeing to do anything did not extend the invite to be shared. Panic fills me, and I turn to walk away, but he catches my arm and pulls me back.
“Red,” I gasp, pulling a word I think he’ll understand out of thin air. That makes him laugh even more.
“Red?”
“It’s a safe word to stop.”
“I know what safe words are, baby. I’ve issued them many times, but you aren’t tied to my bed yet, so I don’t know what exactly you’re safe-wording me for when I haven’t done anything.” He quirks a brow.
I think past his words and push the image of me being tied to his bed with him taking me out of my mind.
“I don’t want to be shared,” I say shaking my head.
“Well… lucky for you, I’m too greedy.” His gaze rakes over my body, making every nerve come alive. “I’m definitely having you all to myself.”
This feels different. Something feels different. Like I’m not… whatever I am.His whore. That word keeps coming back to haunt me because I hate it so much. He’s not looking at me like I am. He’s looking at me like that first night. With interest.
“That okay?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, and the way his eyes tangle with mine, with such riveted attention, makes me take a moment and wonder if this were another time… or if we’d met under different circumstances, what we’d be.
Like maybe if we met at a bar or somewhere normal to me.
I think it because just now when I answered him, it felt real, like I was really saying yes to him and not our arrangement.
He releases my arm.
“Sit.” He points to the sofas next to us.
I walk over to sit, and he sits on the sofa opposite me. There’s a bottle of wine and two glasses.
He doesn’t take the drink. Instead, he sits back and gives me that look that drinks me in and undresses me with lust filled invisible fingers.
“We’re here again,” I say, trying to figure out what we’re doing tonight. There was no mention of a car taking me back to the house, not that that happened last week.
“We are.” He continues to watch me.
“And we’re sitting?”
“And talking.”
“What are we talking about?” This feels like a game.
“Stuff. Tell me about your writing. How did it replace your first love?” The question throws me for the fact that it’s a question about me and the way he phrased it.
I think about my answer. There’s a long version to the truth and a short one. I decide to go with something in between. “I think it’s a thing creative people can do. They find a way to express themselves somehow when they can’t do one thing.”
“You write about other people. Is that what you want to do?”
“I like it.” I nod. “Lifestyle writing covers stories about positive and influential people who sometimes change the world in their various pursuits. It gives others hope. It’s nice to write about people like that.”
“Like how you think Todd Barker is the sexiest man alive?” His lips arch.
My eyes widen. “That was my first article.”
