Page 86 of Mr. Aster
“You’re regretful?”
“Fearful is more of the word I’m aiming at. What the hell was I thinking?”
“Did you enjoy it?” I questioned, hoping to move this regret out of her system.
“Of course I did, and that terrifies me.”
“Instead of being regretful or fearful for fuckingme,just enjoy the fact that it was good.” I took a bite of eggs, hungrier than I’d been in forever and wishing I’d made more because they weren’t half bad. That or I was just starving. “I will be honest and say it was the best sex I’ve ever had.”
“Well, I have to admit, you’re up there with some of the best sex I’ve ever had.”
I placed my fork on the table after cleaning my plate and stared into her eyes with a smile, “I’mup therewithsomeof the best sex, eh? Tell me, who’s up there with me?”
“I mean, you don’t?—”
“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me feel like, out ofallthe sexual relationships you’ve had, I am nothing special and that having sex with me was comparable to others you’ve been with.”
“So?”
“Well, I find that rude,” I said, being direct and adoring her sudden embarrassment for trying to lie and keep a wall between us.
“I’m not being rude; I’m being honest,” she said, and by the look in her eye, I could tell she was just spouting off shit to protect herself from me.
“Okay,” I returned to my meal while she nibbled on avocado toast. “So, if I tell you that having sex with you wasup therewith some of the best sex I’d had with my wife and others before I got married?”
I glanced over at her timidly eating her avocado toast and smiled. This was unlike Darcy; I wanted to move her past her worries. The Darcy I’d come to know was the type who would’vedevoured her plate of food by now and eyed what was left on mine, wanting that too.
“Listen, I just don’t want us to get mind fucked. That wasdefinitelyan unexpected thing we did last night, and though itwas, if you must know, the best sex I’ve ever had, we shouldn’t have done it.”
“But we did, and now we can both agree that we are truly quite the match.”
“Right,” she rolled her eyes in irritation, “quite the fucking match. A match made in hell that can never go anywhere, and now I am wondering what the fuck I’m going to do. Nat warned me about this shit with you.”
My eyes widened at the same time hers did. The only difference in our gestures was that she practically slapped herself in the face, covering her mouth with both hands.
“Oh, shit,” she said, eyes closed and lips silenced by the death grip she held over her mouth.
“Oh, shit, is whatIwas about to say,” I said, wholly shocked this little gemstone had revealed our secret to Natalia Monroe, of all the people she could slip up around.
She shook her head. Even if I wanted to be upset that Nat probably told our lie to everyone we knew, which was probably why they all showed up at our house last night, I couldn’t. Darcy looked too damn cute, being innocently afraid of what she just admitted to me.
“I didn’t mean to,” she said, like a toddler who got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. “She sorta knew.”
“How did she know?” I questioned, confused and curious.
She sighed, annoyed at herself, “It was the first night we were here. It’s like she could tell you hadn’t been laid or something. So, she went right for the throat no matter how hard I tried to lie.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” I said, laughing at this line of bullshit.
“It’s the truth,” she said, conjuring the fiery, combative spirit of the Darcy Burke I knew so well.
“You mean to tell me that Nat cornered you on our fake relationship, stating she knew it wasn’t true because I hadn’t been laid?”
“Well, you’re obviously handsome and the prized stallion for everyone in your upper-class circles, so I guess she thought we’d be fully fucked and all smiles by the time we reached our fake engagement.”
I stared at her in awe of what I was hearing. I must’ve looked like a complete idiot trying to determine what went on in women’s minds.
“And so, you told her that becauseIhadn’t been laid, she must be right, and we weren’t in a relationship?”
