Page 68 of Say You Will

I step farther into the room, gently kicking the door closed behind me as I go. “Ancient history. Gunshot and subsequent surgery. It happened when I was a kid before you and I ever met.”

I thought my words would reassure her. Instead, she looks devastated.

“No one ever told me that.”

“We don’t talk about it.”

“If you want to, I’ll liste—”

“I don’t.”

Her gaze continues to drift over my body. Then her attention flies to my eyes, then back again, as though she can’t help herself.

I glance down, and . . . I hadn’t considered the damp fabric/no underwear effect. But the entire scope and breadth of my cock is visible through these sweatpants. The longer she stares, the more prominent it becomes.

“Duck call collection,” she breathes.

I rub the back of my neck, a little embarrassed, but determined not to show it. With any luck, she’ll eventually see a lot more of me than this. “What about duck calls?”

She shakes her head, eyes back on mine, but this time with a small smile on her face. “Bronwyn almost said ‘dick’ in front of your mom earlier but changed it to ‘duck call collection’ at the last minute.”

Franki has always done this. Where someone else would have said,“Nothing”or“private joke,”she lets me in.

“I’d prefer if we don’t refer to my genitalia as a duck call collection,” I admit.

“It is a tad undignified. What would you prefer I call it?” she asks cheekily.

I narrow my eyes. “No need for any special word. Call it what it is.”

Flushing pink, but eyes sparkling with mirth, she says, “I don’t know. ‘I want to suck your penis,’ doesn’t sound very sexy.”

My now rock-hard penis disagrees.

I lunge at her, climbing across her bed, and looming over her in the span of less than two heartbeats.

She responds by lying back against her pillows with an exaggerated expression of innocence.

I hover there, my mouth inches from hers. “I’ve changed my mind. You can call it anything you like, as long as you say that first part with it.”

She’s under the covers, with layers of fabric between us, but she smiles and holds her palm to my jaw. “Hello, Henry.”

I drink her in. “Hello, Franki.”

Her dark eyes catch on mine, and she bites her lip. Neither of us is wearing glasses, and now that I’m closer, she’s in sharper focus. Her skin is virtually luminescent in the low light from her lamp and as smooth as glass.

I run my fingers across her eyebrow and over the crest of her cheekbone. “You knocked on my door.”

She nods.

“Did you need something?”

“A towel.”

I raise an eyebrow, the corner of my mouth lifting entirely on its own. “Really? At two in the morning?”

She looks to the ceiling as if she’s thinking. “I meant to say that my pillow was lumpy.”

“How dare any pillow be less than a cloud for your precious head?”

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