“And yet she still got involved with you?” I can’t see her face in the position we’re in, but from the tone of her voice, I suspect Genevieve is frowning.
I get it. It was a situation that once made me frown too. A lot.
It makes me happy that she cares enough to have that reaction.
“I think she thought he’d be back by then,” I tell her. “I was just supposed to be a distraction while she figured out what she did next.”
Genny tilts her head up toward me, and this time I can see she’s frowning. “That doesn’t sound very nice of her. You’re just her plaything while she decides if she’s waiting for her real lover to return? That’s a load of tosh.”
“Well.” Once upon a time I would have agreed. Now it doesn’t bother me like it once did. “I actually didn’t mind being a plaything.” Gwen had been ten years older than me. The sex had been hot. The whole situation had been hot, whether she had feelings for me or not.
But back then, it had stung more. “I did mind not knowing her heart was already spoken for. Even when she’d always been clear it was just sex, it would have been nice to know.”
Genny sits up and stares at me, her eyes aflame. “I can’t believe you’re so cavalier about it. ‘It would have been nice’? She should have told you. Plain and simple. That she didn’t is just mean.”
Jesus, I love it when she’s feisty.
“And how could she expect you not to develop feelings for her? It’s natural to fall for someone you’re intimate with. Especially when it’s repeated intimacy. No matter what our culture tries to make us believe, it stirs things. How could she not have fallen for you as well?”
Our eyes meet, and in unison, we both realize what she’s said. How it could apply to our current situation. Genny’s cheeks turn beet red, and she lowers her eyes, and all I can think is Oh my god, is she really falling for me?
I want to know so badly that I almost ask.
But in the end, I’m chickenshit, and instead I only make allusions. “That is the burning question, really,” I tease, trying to lighten her embarrassment. “How can anyone not fall for me is an even more accurate question.”
She gives me a lopsided grin and settles her head on my chest without remarking on my comment—maybe she’s chickenshit too. “I’ve decided I don’t like her,” she says after a beat. “I’ll be nice to her in person, of course. But she’s heartless.”
I chuckle, stroking my hand through her hair. “Gwen isn’t heartless. We’re friends now. Good friends.”
Genny harrumphs, her finger drawing lazy circles over my chest. “Doesn’t mean I have to like her.”
I love how good her touch feels on my skin, and I almost miss her subtext. But then it hits me—“You’re jealous!”
I love that she’s jealous.
Her hand stops mid-circle. “Do I have a reason to be jealous?”
I shake my head then realize she can’t see it. “I don’t have any feelings for Gwen any more beyond friendship. I told you that earlier.”
“Then I’m not jealous.”
“Well. You are. But that’s cool. I like it.”
She sits up and scowls playfully at me, but she doesn’t deny my accusation a second time. Is it fucked up how much I love her attitude toward my ex? Because I love it a lot.
When she lies down again, it’s on her side, facing me. I move toward her until our noses are inches from touching and wrap my arm around her waist. She fits so perfectly against me. Like we were made to be this close.
With her eyes pinned to mine, she asks, “Have you ever been the way you are with me with anyone else?”
I squint, trying to understand exactly what she’s asking. “Like what way that I am? Like where I hold you all night? I’m holding you all night, by the way.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m holding you,” I say with an authoritative tone I know she won’t refute.
Goose bumps sprout up on her skin. “Like that—like bossy and…I don’t know.”
“Dominating?”
“Yeah. And rough. And primal.”
I bring my finger up to trace the line of her lips. It gives me an excuse to look somewhere other than her eyes when I answer. “I told you before that I haven’t.”
“I want to hear it again. You’ve never tied someone up?”
“Nope.”
“Pushed them to the ground?”
I shake my head.
“What about spanked them?”
“Not like how I spanked you.” Not with a belt. Not so hard it left marks. My gaze flickers up to hers, suddenly worried. “Can you tell?”
“No,” she says softly. “And yes.”
I stay silent, waiting for her to expand, and she does. “When we’re like this, it feels like you’re never anything else. Like this is who you are. Kind and gentle and kind of cocky but also goofy.”
“There you are with the goofy again…”
She ignores my interjection. “It doesn’t seem at all like you’d be the type of guy to strap a belt around a woman’s wrists or shag her in a bathroom or pretend to force her in the backyard of your parents’ summer home. But then, when you’re doing that, it seems like there’s no other way you’d ever fuck. You’re natural at it. And the only reason I suspect that it’s new to you is because of that first time. The awful time.”
“Oh my god. It wasn’t awful. Would you stop saying it was awful?” I pretend to strangle her, taking note for the future of how it makes her eyes cloud with desire. “It wasn’t maybe as good as the times after, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you afterward.”