Page 98 of Talk Nerdy To Me
He gives me a slow nod, pocketing his hands as he clears his throat and looks down.
“Let me get this straight, you’re done with me because I’m trying to show you respect as a woman,” he says like he’s pointing this out.
“I really don’t want to be done with you at all. I want to be friends—like I think we are. I just don’t want to risk falling in love, and it feels like that’s what you’re unintentionally trying to make me do. I’d think respecting me as a woman would be to respect my ability to decide what I want at this point in my life. I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t say anything. He merely nods sort of absently.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to stay or go, so I decide to walk away.
“That whole speech sounds coached, Britt,” he says just as I reach my office door. “Who typed it up and had you memorize it?”
I almost don’t speak, since he doesn’t usually listen. But I take a fortifying breath, and ‘look away from those panty-melting eyes that make smart girls stupid,’ like Rain said to do when I have something I really need to say.
Staring at the receptionist, who turns away like she’s uncomfortable, I say, “I’m not intending to be offensive when I point out how hypocritical that is. People around me may voice how they feel, but you’re the only one trying to tell me what I need that I almost listened to. I have a plan, and for whatever reason, you felt as though you—a guy who barely knows me—had the right to tell me how my first time should be. I don’t have to do this your way, and you’re by no means obligated to do it my way.”
I keep my tone neutral, trying not to antagonize him or make him too defensive.
My eyes collide with his, and I realize it’s a mistake, because I want to take all the words back. It’s easier to tell others to stand firm than to tell myself. It took me two days to prepare all those words.
“I think, given our different views, it’s better to keep things just friends. I do love hearing you sing, though. I didn’t want to tell you that in a text.”
I shut up before I start rambling even more disassembled things that can possibly contradict all the things I just said, as I turn and push through the door.
My phone chimes with a text from Harley that has a winky face beside her like a boss message that makes no sense.
I don’t look back, because I feel horrible and I don’t want to feel worse. I don’t think we broke up. I mean, we’ve been living together, and had some intense moments, but I don’t think that means we’re in a relationship that constitutes the need for a break up.
I dwell over that the entire car ride home, and I ignore Krysta’s call because I think I did just break up with him. Which makes me an idiot, because we weren’t dating.
We are already just friends, so I don’t see why I had to bring us down to that level—
Someone knocking at the door is a welcome distraction from my inner tangents as I go to open it. There’s just a second to register Base’s intense stare trained on me, because he’s kissing me in the next second.
Well, now I’m even more confused about what I just did.
I hear the door shutting as one of his arms winds around my waist and pulls me closer, and his other hand goes to my hair as he backs me against a wall.
He breaks the kiss, and I take a couple of really desperate breaths, wondering when my hands dug into his shirt like my body made the decision to keep this situation in play.
“You’re right,” he says quietly against my lips, nipping my bottom one. “Let’s do this your way.”
His mouth comes back down on mine, my his hands slide up his chest until they’re tangling in his hair. He actually lifts me from the ground. My legs go around his waist on instinct, and he kisses me harder as he carries me to my bedroom.
My back hits the bed, and he comes down on top of me, grinding against me just hard enough to create that perfect friction. He makes a sound in his throat that does inexplicable things to my body that make zero anatomical sense.
We only break the kiss long enough for him to tug his shirt over his head, and I quickly do the same with mine before the spell can break—yet another metaphor I’m now more understanding of.
“Tell me to slow down if you need me to,” he says as he breaks the kiss and slows things way down, taking his time as he kisses his way down my neck.
My body goes so still that I almost worry I’ve frozen again. He doesn’t stop this time as he continues kissing his way down, sending rows of chills up me in crescendos of scattered waves that leave the slightest shudder in their wake.
“Where’s your head at right now?” he asks as he kisses his way down my stomach, his fingers toying with the button on my pants.
“Bad poetry,” I confess.
He snorts against my waist, his shoulders suddenly shaking. I practiced dirty talk; I just didn’t know when that was supposed to start.
Apparently, it needs to be immediate, because him laughing is not the sexy Bella told me to bring when the time came.
