Page 114 of Reckless
“I wasn’t trying to be noble.”
That landed.
I dragged a hand through my hair.“You don’t understand how much I hate this.”
“I can guess.”
“No.I mean the saying of it.”My voice sharpened before I could smooth it.“Its’ the assumptions that come with it.I’ve had offers but I never wanted to...”
Speaking was hard.
He watched me carefully.“You think I’m making assumptions.”
“I think men do.”
His mouth flattened, not because he was offended for his sex, thank God.
I kept going because now that I’d started, stopping would be worse.
“I’m not telling you because I need you to handle me delicately.I’m not telling you because I’m scared of sex or a prude or trapping you or anything like that.I’m telling you because in the cave, if I hadn’t, you were going to learn it with your hands before I got to say it with my mouth and that, ” I broke off and pressed my lips together.“And I thought I wanted to and it shouldn’t matter that I’m very choosy.”
His gaze didn’t leave my face.
Space.
Still, I was too wound up now to take space for peace.
I looked at him for one beat.Then another.
And then, because at that point the night had already become a confessional and maybe I was too deep in it to preserve any dignity worth having, I said the ugliest thing.
“Besides I’m almost thirty.”
The words fell and stayed there.
“I’m thirty,” I repeated, flatter now.“I am not eighteen.I am not preserving myself for anyone.I’m just here.Thirty.I didn’t want to mix my body with a man I couldn’t stand for more than a minute but I like you, more than I want to say.And I didn’t want to stop.”
Heat climbed all the way up my throat.I hated myself for the honesty and also felt slightly better for having finally said it with all the teeth on it.
Xerses held my gaze.“That’s everything?”
I laughed.Sharp.“Did you think there was more?”
He moved then.Not all the way across the room.enough that the distance lessened and my body noticed the difference.
“I was more worried you had someone else in your mind.”
His voice had changed.He had quiet kind of intensity that made it impossible to mistake for politeness.
“As long as there is no one else in your heart.,” he said.“And honesty you’re smarter than me so being selective is very you.”
“Selective,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
The word hit me somewhere I had not expected.
I laughed despite myself.
