Page 131 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“You arenot.S-selfish,” Alistair huffed.
“I keep thinking it was kinder to let him go. But maybe it’s cruel? Oh, goodness, I don’t know.” My hand curled into a fist. “It just wasn’t working. And actually…the sex wasn’t even that good.”
A shocked laugh boomed out of Alistair.
“I’m being serious.” A grin tugged at my lips.
“I didn’t say you weren’t.” He wrestled to quiet his laughter. “I wasn’t e-e-expecting that.”
“I wasn’t expecting to say it. It just sorta”—I touched my hands to my chest and then threw them outward with a lowbllllluuugggghsound—“burst outta me. But yeah, it was pretty average. I mean, Jackson ishot?—”
“Is he?” Alistair whiffed, as though I’d just rooted through the trash, pulled out some moldy five-day-old leftovers and called them art.
“Yes.Very. Unfairly. And I liked looking at him, y’know? Likedfeelinghim. So I’d drink all that in. The sights, the feelings, the noises he’d make,everything. And I’d tell myself the sex was good.Great, even. When it was…”
One-sided.
Underwhelming.
“…bland.”
Bland.
Stars.
Could I have picked ablanderword to describe the experience?
“Jackson never really cared about what I wanted,” I prattled on before Alistair could say anything. “I gave him more flipping blowjobs than…” I shook my head, grunting in annoyance. “But heaven forbid I asked him to go down on me. Or for any foreplay. Or even cuddling…henevercuddled. Ever. I cuddled him. But he never cuddled me back. And Ilovecuddling.”
This said as I moved even closer to Alistair, gluing every inch of my body to his head.
And he’d shifted closer to me, as though trying to do the same.
“I love c-cuddling too,” he said.
“It’s awesome, right? Jackson barely tolerated it. And…” I scoffed. “Talking about all this now, it’s no wonder I had that dream about you. My brain was trying to tell me something. And you…I get that I don’t know you all that well, and I’m really,reallysorry if this is crossing any lines. You can tell me to shut up if it is. But I can’t see you leaving a woman hanging. If you know what I mean.”
“Ah,” Alistair cooed. “No. I would not, never, leave a woman h-h-hanging.”
“Didn’t think so.” I stroked his jaw, smiling when he purred. “This is getting weird, though. Isn’t it? I’m sure you don’t want to hear about my sexual blues. I’m sorry, Alistair.”
“It’s not,” he said. “Weird.”
“Only sad and pathetic, right?”
“No.” He nestled his nose more firmly against me. “I un-under…stand…understand. Pippi, you forget…I had a dream too.”
“Ah, that’s right. The one you said I was naughty in.”
“Hmmm. But you never c-c-confirmed if I was naughty inyours.” His eye shifted, fixating on my face. “Was I?”
Thatvoice…
Combined with that intense stare that stripped right through my flesh and peeped into my soul…Goodness.
My belly quivered as heat flooded it, making me ache.
I laughed. Tightly. And it was a delicious torture as it vibrated through my body.
