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CALLIE
When we wokethe next morning, Blake was hard like he had been the morning we woke cuffed together. This time, instead of pulling away from me, he held me tighter.
I thought I’d finally get my mouth on him, but he was like a man possessed. As soon as he realized that I was as eager as he was, he was inside me, on top of me, pressing me down and drawing sounds out of me I didn’t know I could make.
He got a call from the station not long after, while we still lay there panting. After he came back, it was as if a wall had gone up again. Blake was back to being a stern bodyguard, busy enough to keep his distance for the rest of the day and the few days after.
It would have been easy to touch his arm, or just cup him through his slacks. Invite him to my bed again. But the thought that I was leaving as soon as the threat was over kept me from it.
I wanted him. I wanted his big, rough hands on me. I wanted his mouth to do things to me I didn’t know a man was capable of doing.
But I knew better than to want him.
Our lives were too different, and my track record with relationships should have been enough to discourage anybody. It definitely discouraged me.
Even though I kept noticing the way he didn’t smile, his eyes lit up, and feeling a sense of pride that I seemed to be causing that.
We talked more the day before Mackenzie’s wedding. Blake needed to plan and think about the logistics of where I’d be and when.
He wasn’t thrilled that it was a destination wedding—Mackenzie loved St. George Island in the Florida panhandle and had always wanted to get married on the beach.
Blake preferred a place he was familiar with, like Austin. But admitted that it might make it less likely that anybody stalking me would show up there.
He also wasn’t thrilled that we were going to fly, when Austin would have been only a two-hour drive. But the morning we left, he was in a decent mood anyway. He scowled less than usual, at least.
An hour into the flight, he leaned over and squinted at my Kindle. Then he chuckled.
“Look at you, reading porn in public.”
I scoffed. “It’s not porn. It’s romance.”
“The passage I just read isn’t.”
“You picked the dirtiest one in the entire book. You can’t judge the story by one or two sentences. Bethany is giving James a sloppy and enthusiastic blowjob because she’d discovered no woman had ever done it for him before. It’ssweet.”
He grunted. “Sweet and sticky, apparently.”
I hadn’t gotten to do it for Blake. At least, not yet. I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d have another chance to try, but I hoped for it. “Sticky sweet,” I stressed with a grin. “The best kind, isn’t it?”
I watched Blake’s cheeks darken just enough to be noticeable. “Can’t argue with that.”
I went back to my book. A few minutes later, Blake said, “But doing it’s one thing. Reading about it happening to somebody else... what’s the appeal?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, I’m seriously asking. Why do you read that stuff? I’m not judging. Just curious.”
I didn’t think hewasjudging, but he seemed so genuinely baffled by it. I wondered if more men shouldn’t read books like that. Maybe they’d figure out a few things about women a little sooner than they seemed to.
“First, it’s not about the sex.”
He scowled. “If that were true, there wouldn’t be sex in them.”
“No, not necessarily. The sex comes after this huge buildup of attraction, forming bonds of trust. Each person’s walls break down bit by bit because they find the other person so irresistible. The sex just illustrates all of that. And it’s sex, Blake. Sex is sexy.” I shrugged.
“If it’s not about the sex, then—”
“It’s about the men. In books like this, the men only sometimes seem to be jerks when deep down they just want to love and be loved. They don’t cheat, they don’t betray, they don’t belittle, and they don’t damage the self-worth of the person they’re falling in love with. They’re flawed, they’re not perfect, but the woman they fall in love with becomes the most important thing to them. She’s not just someone to use and cast aside as soon as something, or someone, better comes along.”
