Page 7 of Changing the Playbook
“So what—” I swallow, like he’s told me he’s going to be performing some sort of complex brain surgery on me. “What happens now?”
“Now?” He lifts my hand, presses his lips to my whitened knuckles. “Now you show me your room, and we take our time figuring out exactly what makes you feel good.”
“Ambitious project for one night.”
“I’ve been told I excel at time management.”
“That might be the least sexy thing anyone’s ever?—”
He steps closer, crowding me. “I’ll make you forget what efficient even means.”
As I lead him down the hallway, something fundamental shifts—not just the physical transition, but a complete reorientation—and for the first time in more than a year, I’m not chasing oblivion. Instead, I’m stepping toward something that demands presence, attention, and the very awareness I usually try to escape.
It’s fucking terrifying.
It might also be exactly what I need.
At my bedroom door, I hesitate with my fingers on the doorknob. I know that once we cross this threshold, there’s no returning to simple. No Ctrl+Z back to uncomplicated. Mikewaits behind me, patient as always, his presence both steadying and charged with promise.
I push the door open and turn to face him. “Fair warning, if this pleasure-seeking expedition of yours fails, I’m holding you entirely responsible.”
“I’ll risk it.” He steps inside, closing the distance between us. His hands find my hips, warm through fabric. “Though I’m pretty confident in my methodology.”
“Methodology?” I scoff. “And you said ‘efficient’ was unsexy, so where does that rank?—”
He cuts me off with a kiss that’s nothing like the careful exploration from before. This is intent made physical, promise given texture. It’s all tongue and teeth and roaming hands, and when he pulls back, I’m breathing like I’ve run sprints.
“Sophie.” My name in his mouth sounds like discovery. “We’re going to find what makes you melt. What makes you gasp. What makes you forget your own name.” His thumb traces the jut of my hipbone. “And then we’re going to do it again and again until pleasure is something you know in your bones.”
The words streak heat through my bloodstream. This man—this stranger who lured me in at a bar—is suddenly looking at me like I’m a puzzle worth solving. And, for the first time with a guy, it feels like I’m not just a piece of flesh to be used and discarded.
“You barely know me,” I whisper, the protest tissue-thin.
“I know enough.” His fingers span my waist. “I know you’re brilliant, because those flashcards aren’t for amateurs. I know you’re funny when you let yourself be. I know you care for others until there’s nothing left for yourself.” He leans closer. “And I know I’ve never wanted to make someone come more than you.”
The raw honesty of it steals my breath.
As he kisses me again—slower this time, deeper, like we have decades instead of hours—something inside me finally stops fighting. Maybe it’s exhaustion from perpetually trying tomaintain control. Maybe it’s the way he sees me like I’m worth the effort.
Or maybe I’m just tired of settling for functional when extraordinary is standing right here, offering to show me the difference.
Whatever the reason, when his hands slip under my shirt, rough against my skin, I don’t think about efficiency or checking boxes or who needs me to do what today. Instead, I sink into pure sensation—the callused ridges of his palms, the cascade of nerve endings lighting like struck matches—andrelax.
“That’s it,” he murmurs against my mouth, his voice gone gravelly. “Just feel.”
And, for once in my goddamn life, I’m going to try.
three
MIKE
Sophie’snervousness vibrates through her like a tuning fork—her lips crashing against mine with the desperation of someone trying to beat a shot clock, her hands grabbing fistfuls of my shirt, my hair, whatever purchase she can find on my body.
Meanwhile, I’m playing a different game.
When she pushes for more speed, more intensity, I cup her face between my palms and deliberately soften our kiss, stretching each second out until she makes a small, frustrated sound in her throat that arrows straight to my cock, making it twitch against my jeans.
“Why do you keep doing that?” The accusation threads through her breathless voice as she pulls back. “Every time I try to move things along, you?—”
