Mister O(43)

Truth be told, I kind of want to draw a picture of her, too. Because she looks amazingly beautiful like this.

“I want to make you come again. I want to hear you go wild, and make you fall apart,” I tell her as she breathes hard, panting in my arms.

She runs her fingers over my face and brushes her lips on mine. “I want it all.”

After she comes down from her high, she blinks. Her blue eyes register surprise, as if it’s just dawned on her what she did—dry-humped me. Which is completely awesome in my book, but in hers, I have no idea. I tense, waiting for Harper to slip into that armor she wears so well.

Instead, she loops her arms around my neck. Okay, that’s much better. Then she says, “There’s something I want to tell you.”





18





I’ve never been a huge fan of those words, so it’s time for me to don my own trusty shield. I unsheathe the sword of humor and brandish it. “You want to strip me naked and have your wicked way with me?”

She smiles and nods. “I do.”

Well, I’ll just keep up this tactic. Since that particular weapon, if you know what I mean, is all the way up. “Great. Start here,” I say, pointing to my belt.

She laughs and then grips my shoulders, lowering her voice as if she’s about to admit a secret. “But seriously. I have a confession. As soon as I learned her name, I read J. Cameron’s newest book.”

Sighing, I run a hand through my hair, unsure why we’re back on this topic. “You did?”

Her eyes dance with naughty delight. “It’s so delicious. It’s so hot. And it made me curious,” she continues, and maybe I don’t mind her bringing up the ex at all right now. Not if those books get her turned on rather than ticked off. Hell, maybe I should gift her some.

“What did it make you curious about?”

Harper sits up straighter on me, as if she’s about to make a Big Pronouncement. “I know this may shock you, given how utterly cool you’ve seen I can be, what with getting my hair caught in a zipper and speaking in tongues,” she says, then stage whispers, “but I’ve never been tied to a fridge. Or done it on a desk.”

“And do you want that?”

“That’s the thing,” she says, an excited undercurrent to her words. “I only know what I like to look at. What I like to read about. I have an idea of what I might like. But . . .” She lets her voice trail off.

“But what?” I ask, because I’m dying to know what comes after that.

She takes a breath, purses her lips together, then speaks. “I was a virgin until I was twenty. I’ve only had sex with two guys, and none of it was very memorable. None of it was on a counter, or the dryer, or even in a hotel bed,” she says, patting the mattress.

Maybe it’s the dark of the night, maybe it’s her, maybe it’s just that the only thing better than having hot sex with the woman you want is talking about hot sex with the woman you want. Or, just possibly, it’s that she’s opening up to me for real now. Perhaps that’s why I open up to her.

“I was twenty the first time I had sex,” I say, serving up a detail I don’t share with many people, because it’s personal.

Instantly, her eyes widen. “Are you serious?”

“No, I’m lying,” I say sarcastically.

She pushes my shoulders, nearly toppling me on the bed. “Stop it. I want to know the truth.”

“I was a sophomore in college when I finally ditched the V-card.”

“You were a late bloomer,” she says softly, something like wonder in her voice.

“Girls were a complete mystery to me before then. I didn’t know how to act around them, or what to say. Sort of how you feel sometimes, too.” I realize that maybe Harper and I aren’t that different. I just got over my awkwardness around the opposite sex well before she did.

She gives me a sweet smile. “I guess we do have that in common. Among many other things,” she says, and my chest heats up as she inches closer. “Was she a sophomore, too?”

I shake my head and laugh. “No. She was a grad student. She was the teaching assistant in my animation class.”

Her eyes turn into moons. “Did she teach you everything you know?”

I reflect on her question, and the answer is a big no. But she started my education in women. She was instrumental in showing me the ropes, and telling me every little thing that drove her crazy. I was a good student. I followed her directions, and it was the best damn class I ever took. Any guy who thinks he automatically knows how to please a woman is a conceited ass. Every woman is one of a kind. Every woman has her own titillations and turn-ons. From my teaching assistant, I learned the foundation—how to listen to a woman’s cues, how to give her what she needs, how to make her want more and more.