Page 74 of Worth Every Game
He comes to stand beside me. “Okay. Stop that then.”
I roll my eyes, forcing a lightness into my tone despite the fact that my heart is rioting and a black cloud ofsomethinghovers just out of sight. “You just want me to stay naked.”
“I’d love that.” Grabbing my hand, he tugs on it until I face him. “But not right now.” He exhales heavily, waiting until he has my full attention before he speaks. “I want to give you everything too, El.”
My next breath doesn’t come easily. We’re treading uncharted ground, and nervous tension has me vomiting my thoughts. “Really? Because this was supposed to be business. Tonight was supposed to be dinner and my career and we turned it into sex on a piano, and it feels really intense and you keep mentioning ‘fun’ as though anything other than ‘fun’ might kill you. And that’s okay. I get it. You want to have fun. You want to play. Nothing is serious. Nothing is—”
“El, stop.” I halt at his command, anxiety winding through me as I await whatever he’s about to decree. “I have the most fun with you. More than I’ve ever had with anyone.” One side of his mouth tilts into a smile. “I’d be happy to have fun with only you.”
My chest is tight, my heart strangled off its beat.Does he mean what I think he does?I don’t want to make assumptions. I can’t take that risk. He’s still talking in terms of ‘fun’, after all. I narrow my eyes at him. “What are you saying?”
He breaks into a smile. “What areyousaying?”
We stare at one another for a few long moments, neither one of us ready to break. Finally, I give in. “I don’t know.” I shake my head, twisting my fingers into my curls. “Fuck, I don’t know,” I say, half-laughing, half-dying inside.
He arches a brow, a smile still teasing his lips. “You do know…”
“All right.” I heave an enormous breath, filling my lungs until they’re fit to burst.“I’m not prepared to do this fuck-buddy thing. Not with you. I’m not going to torment myself over it. I’m not going to have amazing sex with you and then pretend it’s just fun and that I’m not moved by—”
“You like me, huh?” His eyes sparkle. He’s loving this.Bastard.
I’m hot; constricted.Exposed. I shrug, trying to backtrack from my emotional explosion. “Not that much. A bit. I could take you or leave—”
His kiss cuts me off, tongue sliding into my mouth, and the passion in it conveys more than any words. I feel everything reciprocated a thousand times over.
By the time he pulls away, I’m spinning with want. I can barely focus when he flashes a smile and whispers, “It’s my massive dick, isn’t it?”
I thwack a playful hand against his pecs, and he chuckles, pulling me tight against him. I relax in his embrace, my body softening against his strength.
He rests his chin on the crown of my head, speaking hushed words against it. All hint of joking vanished from his voice. “You know what?”
“What?” I whisper, hope fluttering in my veins.
“I really like you too.”
My heart leaps. “You do?”
“Yup.”
I nuzzle against him, relishing the relief that’s soaking my soul. “Can it just be us? No one else? No other women?” Hehmms, and the sound vibrates through me. I ease my head out from under his chin and look up at him. “You’re thinking about making a joke about threesomes, aren’t you?”
He laughs, loud, which is all the confirmation I need to know it’sexactlywhat went through his mind.
When his laughter fades, he looks at me seriously. “You want to be exclusive?” I hold back my nod for a second or two, but when I release it, something like satisfaction flickers across his face. “What makes you think we weren’t before?”
“I need you to be explicit.”
He squeezes me tighter. “Okay.” He pauses, and for every millisecond of the hiatus, my heart thumps at triple speed. “I haven’t thought about anyone else since the night you sang for me back in the flat. I don’t want to be with anyone else. I only want you. Exclusively. No games. No fucking about. I’m pretty obsessed with you already, and if you say no, then I’ll sit up in my bedroom and wank to all the pictures I took of you tonight until the day I die.”
“Oh, God,” I wail, the idea of Jack masturbating over the photos distracting me from everything else he said.
“Too much?” Laughter ripples through his tone.
“No.”
“Good. Because I’m not done. If I’m exclusive, you’re exclusive. If you so much as look at another guy, I’ll kill him.”
My eyes flutter shut briefly. “I won’t be looking anywhere else.”