Page 68 of Villainous Summer

He smirked. “I just want you to feel comfortable.”

This should’ve just been sex. But he was making it so difficult to separate that from the growing warmth for him. From my wanton pulse.

I grabbed a cube of cheese off the tray and popped it into my mouth, glancing around.

The room looked the same as the first day. Same pink wallpaper, same teacups. But it felt different. Like a place I could settle into.

I held up the cake in the bakery box. “Is that okay?”

He moaned. “Of course it’s okay. I could eat that every day.” He took the box from me and set up the cake on the table beside our spread.

He motioned to the chair, where I took a seat, then bustled around me, handing me a plate and encouraging me to get food. “I don’t know if I’m that hungry.”

He smirked at me. “You’ll need your strength for what I’m about to do to you.”

I stuffed a big green grape in my mouth.

Afterward, he asked me about my work, my friends, my cousin, and my dad. We talked and talked until the cheddar cubes sweated to a glossy sheen. Conversation flowed between us as I snacked. I couldn’t remember a time when I had opened up so readily.

What we discussed wasn’t deep or meaningful. But he would lean forward as I told a story, cringed at my second-hand embarrassment of watching Wren barf on her asshole ex, and laughed at the right moments, like when I told him Autumn had tried to take a squirrel home when she was five. I mentioned my fear of enclosed spaces after going on a tour of caverns in Montana, and he mentioned watching his mom give herself injections.

He fed me more than I should’ve eaten, but a rising nervousness rolled in my stomach.

As I pushed my plate away, he rose, holding out his hand. “Come on, let’s finish the wine in the backyard.”

He led me through the French doors with one hand while holding the half empty bottle of wine in the other.

I sat in a yellow Adirondack chair as he took my empty wine glass and refilled it without me asking.

As he plopped down opposite me, I sipped the wine.

The backyard was small but fully fenced, with a lush azalea bush blooming ruby red against evergreen.

“This is my favorite wine,” I commented, setting the glass on the wide arm.

“I know.” He took his own sip, looking at me over the rim of the glass. “You posted a picture of the bottle on your Instagram a year ago. Favorite wine with my favorite gals and tagged your friends in it.”

Blinking, I processed this information.

It wasn’t a secret, but who goes back a year on someone else’s social media? Not that I didn’t try with him, but he had practically nothing to go off.

“That’s stalker behavior if I’ve ever heard it.” I took another drink, a smirk playing on my lips.

Not taking the bait, he shrugged. “It’s working, right?”

“Is this how you got all your girlfriends?”

He shook his head. “I don’t do girlfriends, Summer. I told you that.”

I quirked an eyebrow. “Really. So, I’m just supposed to believe that I’m that special?”

“Am I to believe you don’t know you are?”

That was a compliment I wrapped in irritation.

He used know, not think. Unlike the men who would sneer, You think you’re so hot, don’t you, it was an objective fact. Once again, he had a belief in me that no one ever had. He thought I was worthy and, more than that, knew that I knew. It isn’t the false modesty that most men expected, a humility that we stuff our achievements under. It was him wanting me to shine.

I couldn’t respond. What could I have said?

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