“And then what?”
He slides his legs into his jeans, looking up at me with a sly smile. “By then, I’ll have earned your pussy, baby. After our date, I’m going to fuck you all night—making good on the punishments you’ve earned.”
35
CAMDEN
The day drags by achingly slow. Too fucking slow. It’s a shame I actually have to get work done because all I really want to do is walk next door and see Pippa. I want to steal her—even if she’s kicking and screaming—and pull her all the way back to her house. Or she can come to my place. I just need to be near her again. I want to feel her soft, warm body sleeping next to mine. I want to run my fingers along her bare skin, further exploring every single inch of her exquisite body.
I want to hear her soft moans in her sleep when my fingers play with the waistband of her pj’s. I want to see how many orgasms I can get from her until she’s begging for a break, her body too spent to take any more.
I want to sit on the living room floor and talk about life with her. I want to know about her childhood, to hear the silly stories of the trouble she got into. She seemed to be a rebellious teenager, and I want to know every detail from every day of her life from her very first memory to the moment she met me. I’m obsessed with knowing everything there is to know about her, and I’m afraid of what that could mean for me.
I’ve never been like this with a woman. Quite frankly, I’ve never cared about women. I’ve ended up in mutually agreed-upon relationships that were based on sex alone. The expectations were clear from the very beginning. Feelings weren’t supposed to get involved at any point in time. And if I ever felt like someone wasn’t holding up their end of the bargain by not developing feelings, I’d simply leave.
Now, it’s a terrifying realization that I want to stay. I don’t want to book a flight back to New York. I don’t want to run away from Pippa, even when her eyes soften and she looks at me like I couldn’t do a single thing wrong. I’m not terrified of asking her on a date. Usually, the thought of a date would put me off. This morning, I found myself holding my breath, waiting for Pippa to answer me. I wanted her to agree to it. I want to take her out, to show her off, to have people know she’s with me. That she’s mine.
And that’s never happened to me before. I don’t know how to handle it.
One thing I do know is I’d spend every second with her if I could, and that’s unlike me. I like my personal space. I like to be alone. I spent entire days and nights alone without someone talking to me as a child. I got used to it. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself having to reset my social battery, getting overstimulated by being around others. It’s not like that with her. I’d be in a better mood if she was right next to me, not an entire building away.
The thought of her used to irritate me. She used to get under my skin in a way that I wanted to put states between us. Things have changed. Quickly and dramatically, in a way that I can’t keep up with.
I think I have actual feelings for this woman.
I don’t do feelings.
But I want to do feelings if they’re for her.
Speaking of feelings, I look down at my vibrating phone, finding Beck’s caller ID on it.
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. He’s texted me upward of ten times since our chat yesterday, which isn’t typical of him. He’s the friend that gives me space. He doesn’t send dumb memes all day and night or send weird-ass videos he found on different apps like some of our friends.
But he’s still apparently a nosy motherfucker regardless because even though I ignored his first call, he’s calling again.
He’s going to ask about Pippa. Which means he’s going to know about my goddamn feelings for her because why else would I be in a woman’s bed in the middle of the afternoon? We used to be cut from the same cloth until he met Margo. He knows the importance of what he stumbled upon yesterday.
I angrily swipe to answer it, annoyed he’s intuitive. “What?” I spit, already wanting to hang up the call.
“Someone’s grumpy this morning. Were you up late last night with that local friend of yours?”
“Fuck off, Sinclair,” I growl, angrily clicking my computer mouse to give myself something to do.
Beck chuckles on the other line. “You knew I’d bother you until you gave me details.”
“I don’t remember prying into your love life when you were pining after Margo like a goddamn lost puppy. Even when you talked about her all the time, although she was dating your brother.”