Page 87 of Promise Me

“Without you getting dressed?”

“I am dressed.”

She stares at me for a moment as if she’s deciding how much she should argue. This might be the subject that finally makes her crack. But she sighs and nods.

“You’re right. Let me just go wash my hands.”

“Thank you,” I say, even though I want to gloat a little about the part where she said I was right.

She brushes past me to the bathroom. I hear the sink running as I put the food away, only keeping out what we need.

I’m just cutting open the chicken when Sadie emerges from the bathroom. I nearly slice my thumb off.

She smirks at me, wearing nothing buthertowel.

Clearly, I underestimated her surrender a moment ago.

I set the knife down and cross my arms, leaning my hip onto the counter.

“What are you doing?”

She shrugs and saunters into the kitchen.

“I just thought I’d put on something a little more relaxed for the night.”

“And you picked a towel?”

“Mm-hmm.”

She grabs a cutting board and takes over, prepping dinner.

My gaze drops to her bare feet and slowly moves up to her lean calves and her thighs. The towel barely covers her round cheeks, so when she presses to the tips of her toes to get some seasoning from the cabinet over her head, a strangled noise hits me, and my cock hardens instantaneously.

I’m not so sure she kept her panties on.

“You’re playing with fire, Sadie.”

“Me?” She spins with her hand to her heart. “I’m not the one who refused to change his clothes. If you ask me, it’s like you were asking for this.”

“And what is this?”

Slowly, she moves toward me.

“For a reason that we could just innocently find ourselves half naked around the other.”

I don’t reply. I simply keep watching her.

There is not one single innocent thing about the way her gaze hardens as she looks at me or the way her tongue swipes over her lips with each step, or about the thoughts in my head.

“I think I made myself clear on where I stand,” I repeat.

Hold strong, man. You can do this!

“And I think you’re full of shit.”

“Sadie,” I say with as much warning as I can. I should know by now that the only person who knows me better than I know myself is her.

Fighting or not, we have a connection that can’t be matched by anyone else.

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