Page 35 of Evil All Along

As usual, the words elicited a strange combination of reactions from me: the gut-clenching need to shrink away (and, ideally, pull a towel over my head); the sense that I was supposed to say something in return—to acknowledge the words somehow, or reciprocate, or both; and the wild urge to laugh because, I mean, this was me we were talking about, and I ate way too much cake and hated exercise and didn’t have a single ab.

So, I did what any normal, red-blooded American male would have done: I moaned.

I mean, I didn’t make a whole production out of it. But I let out one of those breathy, pleased little sounds.

Bobby’s next kiss was lower on my neck. Harder. Insistent. And it was definitely having, um, an effect—especially when I realized what he was doing.

“You’re giving me a hickey,” I said, and even to myself, I sounded drunk.

Bobby made a surprisingly dark growling noise. “I love how it looks on you. I want to mark you all over like this. God, Dash, do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?”

That frenetic laugh rose up inside me, and I barely tamped it down again. Before I could stop myself, I said, “You don’t have to do that.”

The hiss of the shower filled the small space.

Bobby pulled back. His arms loosened around me, although they didn’t fall away completely. His pupils were dilated, and his lips were puffy, and he drew his brows together as he asked, “What?”

I wasn’t sure if it was panic or courage that made me say, “You don’t have to say things like that. About me.” Water drummed against my back. “If you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

“If it makes you uncomfortable, I mean.”

He slid his hands to my hips, and now it felt like he was holding us apart, keeping both of us firmly planted where we were. His face was unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Did I upset you?”

He shook his head.

“Did I ruin everything?” I tried to keep my voice playful, but my voice dropped off. “Do you want to stop?”

In the warm, humid cocoon of the shower, his golden-olive skin practically glowed. His still-damp hair, in that messy, uncombed shock, made him look ten years younger. He lifted his fingers one at a time, as though he were playing my hips like a piano. And then he shook his head again. “Of course not,” he said as he reached past me to turn the water off. “Let’s move to the bed.”

To my surprise, Bobby wanted to dry me off. A hint of a troublemaker’s smile appeared as he toweled my hair, ignoring my squawks of protest, and his grin was even bigger at the resulting spiky-but-also-somehow-poofy cloud that resulted. I tried to copy him, to get into the playfulness of the moment, but it was like I was always a heartbeat behind, trying to read my next line in the instant before I had to play my part. When Bobby looped the towel around me and shimmied it back and forth, drawing me into another kiss, we bumped noses. But that only made him laugh softly.

When we tumbled into bed, still warm from the shower, I stared up at him as he straddled me. My heart was beating faster in my chest. I scanned his face for tightness or anger or—or what? Or anything, I guess. He hadn’t said anything since suggesting we leave the shower, and now I was painfully awareof every sound: the rustle of bedding; the soft, sticky sounds of still damp skin as he adjusted his position; our syncopated breaths.

Are you mad? The question almost slipped out before I could stop it. Are you hurt? Can you tell me how you’re feeling?

But I couldn’t ask, because I’d just told him he didn’t have to do that. Didn’t have to talk. Didn’t have to express his feelings, or share, or tell me anything. And I couldn’t read his face. And maybe it should have made me laugh and taught me a lesson about irony and be careful what you wish for and all of that. But instead, it was like a bubble was caught high in my chest, and my eyes burned.

He bent to kiss me, cupping my face with both hands. His hair tumbled over his forehead as he leaned down, and for a moment, the need to tell him how he looked—handsome, and vulnerable, and the tiniest bit debauched (in a good way)—was so strong that my lips parted.

And instead, my own words came back to me.

My lips were still parted when he pressed his mouth to mine.

Chapter 11

Bobby zonked out pretty fast after we finished. I mean, not in an ungentlemanly way. He was always good about checking in, about snuggling, about making sure it wasn’t a wham-bam-thank you, uh, sir kind of experience. But Bobby did veer dangerously close to a straight guy sometimes (my God, his socks), and true to form, it wasn’t long before soft, snoring breaths reached me in the dark.

I, on the other hand, did not sleep. I lay there in the dark, listening to the wind hammer the house and snap at the shutters, my mind running on its little hamster wheel.

Everything was fine. Everything was great. Our, um, relations had been fantastic—as always. Bobby was so attentive. So careful. And it only made it better when he got so worked up that he lost control, when he forgot all about being attentive and careful. And tonight hadn’t been any different.

---