Page 6 of Pucked Up

“Ah, oui,” he murmured.

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth as heleaned in to nuzzle me again. He ran the tip of his nose along my jawline, over my earlobe, down my neck. I could feel him breathing in, like he was basking in my scent. At least I was clean and had put on some cologne. On a hockey day…well, I didn’t want to think about what he’d say if he’d caught me on a hockey day.

“Tell me your rules,” he said again.

“I just said?—”

He interrupted me with an impatient scoff. “Will you let me kiss you?”

I was startled and yanked back, almost toppling out of his arms, but he held fast. My shoes scrabbled for purchase before I managed to straighten my feet. Men didn’t ask me that. They didn’t want that. I had a slight, thick accent. My cerebral palsy accent, I liked to call it.

It was a speech impediment that I’d been forced to have surgery for, and therapy for, made slightly more difficult by my hearing loss. It was yet one more thing that made me seem so different in the eyes of people who had never met anyone like me.

But he didn’t bat an eye.

No, instead, he caught his gaze on my mouth and gave me the look of a starving man. A feral man. Someone who would probably tear my clothes to shreds the moment I gave him the go-ahead. Crisse, I started to feel a little drunk on all that attention.

“Is it a fetish?”

“A fetish?” he parroted.

I sighed quietly. “You really like me. Is it afetish?” It was a fair question. There were plenty of people who were attracted to men like me because we lived in bodies like the one I had. They were the ones I avoided fucking like they had the Black Plague.

He blinked, then laughed. “No. But I understand why you’d ask.” Lifting his free hand, he brushed a collection of hair off my forehead, then dragged a touch down my cheek.

I let myself get lost in his touch, but only for a moment. I didn’t know why I fucking cared so much if it was a thing for him. It had never mattered before. But right now, it felt like the most important question in the world. “But you’ve known people. Like me. You’ve done this before.”

“Not like you. No one like you,” he said very quietly. “But I’m not unfamiliar with a body like yours.”

Was I seriously going to push this issue? “So, you like?—”

He sighed and pulled back. “I like you, petit feu. Just you. I liked the way you smiled at me in the bar because it was honest. I could tell you didn’t do that a lot.”

Fuck him for being right.

“I like your laugh, even though you try to hide the sound. I like that you know what you want, and you’re not afraid to ask for it without hesitation or reservation.” He pulled further back, and his gaze drifted from my toes to my eyes. “I like that you’rehot. I like your scruff.” He thumbed the hair on my jaw. “I like your terrible Canadian accent?—”

“Fuck you.”

He laughed again, and God help me, I smiled. He looked utterly triumphant. “I like the way that you’re fighting yourself for this because you know you want it. You know that I can make you feel so good. And I think that scares you. I’m looking forward to seeing your face when you realize that with me, there’s nothing to fear.”

“Spoken like a true serial killer.”

He leaned in and spoke right against my ear. “If I am, I promise that I will make you the loveliest lampshade anyone has ever seen.”

Oh hell.Tabarnak.

I wanted him out of my head. But I also wanted him on me.

“Take me to the bed. And,” I added just before he started moving. I hesitated another long second. “My rules are simple. Everything you read, yes, but also, don’t treat me like I’m broken. I’m not.”

“It hadn’t occurred to me for even a moment, petit feu.”

I met his gaze and held it. “I won’t break either. Give me space to let go.”

He traced a touch over my jaw. “You’ll be safe with me. I swear it.”

My heart hammered in my chest. “And you can kiss me. Whenever you like.” That felt like too open-ended of a promise, but I wasn’t going to see himagain after that, so it didn’t scare me like it should have.

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