Page 95 of Stags

“We both have jobs,” she said. “You’re busy.”

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug. “But I could help, you know, if you like your independence. You’ll be tired, and I could bring food and pay for someone to keep the place clean, and—”

“You’re going to hire me a maid?”

“Not if you don’t want me to,” he said.

She just eyed him. “I could hire my own maid.”

“I know that. But you should take my money,” he said.

“Oh, I should, huh?”

“Yeah, take it and like it,” he said, smirking at her.

“Yes, sir,” she said, waggling her eyebrows.

When they had sex later, it was different, and she didn’t know why. She still called him ‘sir’ and he still ordered her around, but there was a softer, sweeter quality to his voice, something that seemed fond and affectionate.

He rubbed her clitoris as he worked himself in her, his body between her spread thighs, and whenever she looked up, their gazes caught, and she liked it, liked looking into his eyes while he was toying with her there, while he held her pleasure in his grasp, while he rubbed her senseless.

Holding his gaze while she found her climax was very, very intimate, and she looked away a couple times, almost unable to handle it, but she’d always go back, meet his gaze with hers again, and her pleasure would surge.

When she went over the brink, he followed her almost immediately.

He tipped over to kiss her and she gripped his shoulders and pressed her body into his, and it was… different.

Good, though.

“Can you stay?” he whispered against her. “I know you might want to get back to your pillows and your routine—”

“I’ll stay,” she said, snuggling into him.

He kissed her temple, holding her tightly against him. “I hope you’re pregnant,” he breathed.

And she whispered back, for no reason that made any sense, “I might be a little scared.”

“Of course you are,” he said, tightening his grip on her. “But you won’t be alone, you know?”

She sighed, liking that. “Will you take care of me? Take care ofus?”

“Yes,” he said, kissing her temple again. “Yes, always, definitely. Please, let me do that.”

She might. She might just let him do that. She might be accidentally falling for him, and she thought it was one of the stupidest things she’d ever done.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

RORA AND STOCKTONsaw each other on campus throughout the week, and they hung out together in the evenings a few times, meeting up at a restaurant one night and then two other times at a typical watering hole that was frequented by people in their shared friend group, a sort of dive with crappy fried food and cheap cans of beer and local bands playing on what barely counted as a stage.

Friday night, however, Maibell was there, and they both indicated to the other that they could handle that, that they were going to have to be in similar places where she was from time-to-time. But then, when Stockton asked if she wanted to come back to his place, she accepted immediately.

The Maibell fallout wasn’t terrible.

Apparently, the worst had been the confrontation in the coffee shop. She didn’t seem to have told anyone about what had happened, though. Others in the friend group ran into Rora with Stockton, were surprised, and Rora would explain that she had already told Maibell herself, and they would say, “Wow, she didn’t say anything to me about that.”

Maibell was apparently pointedly not speaking about it with anyone.

It was awkward, but it could have been worse.

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