Page 15 of Rent a Bad Boy

The room gets very quiet. Not silent—I can hear her grandma’s TV through the wall—but the space between us goes still. I can see her processing, trying to figure out what I’m about to say. Every conclusion she lands on makes her face go a darker shade of red.

“What do you want?” she croaks.

I should let her off the hook, right? Tell her I’m kidding, that I’ll do it for free. That’s what a decent person would do.

A decent person would also not be standing in an eighteen-year-old’s bedroom, noticing the way her bottom lip looks when she bites down on it or the way her pulse is jumping in her throat. Or the way she’s looking up at me with those big brown eyes that can’t decide whether they’re scared or something else.

I’ve never been accused of being decent.

“I want to make you come.”

Her mouth drops open, and her face goes as red as a stop sign before she covers her cheeks with her hands. “You... what?”

“You heard me.”

“I... you... that’s not...” She’s sputtering. She’s actually sputtering like an engine that can’t turn over. “That’s not a form of payment.”

“It is right now.”

“You can’t just... I mean, that’s not... People don’t just⁠—”

“People don’t just what?”

“Say that!” she blurts out. “Out loud! To someone’s face! In their bedroom!” She gestures with her hand around the room. “This is where I do homework!”

“And tonight, it’s where I make you come. Unless you say no.”

She’s fighting with herself. I’m a patient person when I feel like it, and right now, I feel like it, so I watch her work everything out for herself without forcing her in one direction or another.

“Why?”

Good question. Why? Because I’ve been thinking about making her come ever since the first time I saw her dimples, honestly. She handed me a chicken, and I held it like it was made of glass, and something inside me changed—either that, or it was always there, and I just didn’t know it.

Because she’s looking up at me right now with her lips parted, and her pulse going crazy, and I want to know what sound she makes when she stops thinking so hard.

I’d rather bite my tongue than say any of that out loud, so instead, I reply, “Because I want to.”

She’s quiet for a long time. Long enough that I start to think she’s going to say no. “Okay,” she whispers instead.

I can’t help being surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She pushes her glasses up her nose with a shaking hand.

I didn’t expect it to be this easy. She must really love those chickens.

She looks around the room, then looks at me. Right away, her gaze hits the floor. “What do you want me to do?” she whispers. Is she trembling? Yeah, she’s definitely trembling. That shouldn’t get me hard, but this has been a strange day.

I kiss her first, because she’s not going to make the first move. I could stand here until I turn into a skeleton, and she still wouldn’t make the first move.

She’s shaking. Not a lot, but enough that I feel it when I put my hand on the side of her face. Her skin is warm, and her pulse is hammering under my thumb where it rests against her jaw. When I lean down to press my mouth to hers, she makes this tiny sound that’s not quite a gasp but not quite a whimper. Either way, it goes straight through me.

I keep it slow because that’s how she needs it, even if slow isn’t something I’m good at. My other hand finds her hip, and I hold her there, steady, giving her something to lean into while I kiss her. Her hands come up to my chest, her fingers curling into my shirt. I can feel her deciding whether to pull me closer or push me away.

She pulls me closer.

Her mouth opens under mine, and I take what she’s offering, tasting her, feeling the way her breath stutters when my hand slides from her hip down to the hem of her shirt. I don’t go under it. Not yet. I let my fingers rest there for a while, against the strip of skin between her shirt and her jeans.

“This okay?” I ask against her mouth. Her lips are sweet, but the way she melts against me is sweeter.