Page 67 of When Wildflowers Bloom

My face is hot—my entire body is hot—I think I might die from overheating.He can’t look in there.I’m frustrated and flustered, trying to grab it from him while he reaches it higher, just out of my reach.

“Bo!” I shout, jumping with a swipe of my arm through the air only to bounce off his broadness empty-handed.

Asshole.

“Birdie,” he coos, twisting me until he has me pinned to his side with one arm as he holds the book in his other. “Wood of Love?” he asks, reading the title, clicking a sound with his tongue as I writhe under his arm until I break free with a grunt.

“Fine!” I bite out. “Just get this over with so I can go die.” I sit on the bed, cross my arms, and wait for death.

“I’m going to read it to you,” he says, smug smile on his lips.

My voice comes out something between a groan, a yell, and a whimper. “Bo! No!”

“Ah yes,” he says, dropping onto the bed, laying back with one arm bent behind his head, the other holding the book, as his ankles cross. “I see our main character is named Aaron.” His eyes dramatically look somewhere in the distance, repeating, “Aaron,” in a breathy voice.

“I hate you.” I drop my face to my hands as he thumbs through the pages.

“Let’s find the good stu—” He pauses, looking over the top of the book toward me. “I see you’ve highlighted your favorite passages here, Birdie.” He whistles, raising his eyebrows. “I’m shocked that, ‘naked, his legs were like oak trees, but what was between themwas a sequoia’didn’t make your highlight standards.” He continues, trying to suppress a smile as I beg him to stop. “Ahh! There are quite a lot of things that Aaron does that y—” He stops.

Shit.

I can’t have sex with Bo again, I know that, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought about it.A lot.

His weight shifts the bed next to me—he’s sitting up. I can’t look at him. Even if he has some kind of feelings for me like Libby says, other than fourteen-year-old girls, who really does this? Perverts, that’s who!

“Birdie.” The throaty way he says my name—the familiar scrape of his beard against my cheek, rustiness of his voice, and warmth of his breath—makes me physically ache. Like a cat’s tongue being dragged all over me inside and out. “Tell me.”

I shake my head quickly.

“Please,” he begs.

I turn my head slightly until my mouth is at his ear.

My trembling, “Fine,” is a sultry sound I don’t recognize.

“I highlight the…stuff…”

Another shallow breath.

“…and I changed Aaron’s name to Bo…”

I squeeze my eyes shut, barely getting air in my lungs, then—quietly—add, “Because I imagine it’s you.”

My head gets fuzzy, like I might be about to slip into a coma. I’m so lightheaded, and he’s so still, it’s unbearable. I’ve freaked him out—of course I did. What kind of degenerate do I have to be to even do that? Even worse, as mortified as I am at the confession,I’m extremely turned on. Like something deep inside my body is thrilled that he knows.

Because I’m a pervert.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just, you know, I don’t really have sex, and then with you—” I turn my head more so I can apologize to his face. I may be depraved, but I’m not a coward. His eyes are dark, the low light of the room making him glow. “I know it’s weird, and—and—and,” I stutter, heat incinerating my body with every word, “—and creepy or gross or—”

He cuts me off with a kiss. Fast. By the time his tongue finds mine, he’s pulling away.

“Birdie,” he says, so close I can feel his breath on my skin, “if I had my way, I’d be ripping your clothes off right now and fucking you until you couldn’t walk for a month.Weirdis the last word I would use to describe how I feel about you thinking of me when youtouchyourself.”

Fire zips from the back of my eyes to the deepest part of my belly and explodes with a throb. I have never—ever—had anyone sayanythinglike that to me.Ever.

“I want to read this to you.” He pauses, swallows—slow and audibly—and I wonder if he feels the same thickness in his throat as I do in mine. “And I want you to show me what you do.”

No.

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