I thumped my head forward against his chest. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have unloaded on you like that.”
He brushed his thumb over my lower lip. “Nah, honey, don’t apologize. You gotta unload that shit. You can’t keep it buried inside forever, or it’ll fester. I know I may not seem like it, but I am actually a good listener.”
I frowned up at him. “Why wouldn’t you seem like a good listener?”
He shrugged a big shoulder. “My size, my looks, the fact that I’m a football player and an MMA fighter…and the way I talk. People just assume I’m a stupid meathead. I don’t exactly go out of my way to dispel that notion ’cause, for the most part, I don’t really give a shit, and it’s kinda useful to be underestimated. But sometimes, I do give a little bit of a shit about what people think.”
“So far, Baxter, you seem to me like a rather more complex individual than you get credit for.”
“I like to think so. And I also like to think at some point, the right person will see that, instead of just…assuming shit about me.”
“Like when people assume that because I come from money and power, that I’m nothing but a spoiled rich bitch, like those ridiculous rich kids on Instagram?”
Our gazes were locked, and the intensity between us, a kind of unspoken understanding, sizzled and sparked. We couldn’t come from more vastly different backgrounds, but we both knew what it was like to be misunderstood and underestimated and relegated to one particular and unfair little box.
He’d relaxed the pressure on the waistband of my borrowed sweatpants when I’d started venting, and now he increased it once more, slowly and inexorably dragging them downward, centimeter by centimeter.
I wasn’t wearing any underwear. After the shower, it had felt too good to be clean after all that had gone on that I’d not wanted to put my old, dirty underwear on, and so I hadn’t. I’d not been expecting…all of this.
“Pretty much,” Baxter said. “And for the record, you’re a hell of a lot more than just a set of body parts to me, Eva. You got spunk, and you’re sassy, and you’re smart. You put shit out there, take it or leave it, and I like that. Also, I got absolutely no use for connections of any kind. I got seven connections—my brothers—and that’s all I need. So…just want you to know, my interest in you is all aboutyou.”
“And what exactly is the nature of your interest in me, Baxter?”
“Thought that much was fairly obvious,” he said.
I kept my gaze on his, waiting for his answer. At some point, I’d dropped the plastic grocery bag containing my clothing, so my hands were free, and they were resting on his shoulders. Now, I skimmed my hands down his arms, cupping the bulge of his biceps, simply because I’d never been this close to biceps like his, the kind of muscles you typically only see on guys in the movies, or on a billboard.
He ran his thumb over my lower lip, tugging my mouth open, touching my chin, and then he dropped that hand to my waistband, and now his hands were at my hips, he was pushing the sweatpants down, down over my hips. The wrought iron fence was cold against my skin as my buttocks were exposed, and the air was cool against the dampness of my privates; I wasn’t breathing at all, at all.
I was gasping past the throbbing lump that was my heart in my throat.
He lowered the sweatpants until I was completely exposed from the hem of the shirt sitting above my navel to the top of the sweatpants, riding at mid thigh. His eyes remained on mine, however, rather than on the delicate, private flesh now exposed for him.
“Eva, sweet thing…my interest is in making you feel things you’ve clearly never felt before. My interest is in touching you and making you scream, making you wriggle and writhe and beg me to do all the things you’ve never even dared to fantasize about.” His gaze remained locked on mine, yet I felt his hand moving. Reaching. “My interest, Evangeline, is in getting you naked and fucking you six ways to Sunday, and then on Sunday, staying in bed with you from sunrise to sunset and listening to every last damn thing you have to say, about absolutely anything. My interest is in finding out how loud you can scream, and how many times in a row you can come.”
“Baxter—”
“My interest is in throwing you onto your bed and spreading your legs apart and devouring this sweet wet pussy of yours”—and now, finally, he touched me as he mentioned the area by name, and his touch was delicate and gentle and slow, and I sizzled and I seared and I gasped—“until you can’t take any more.”
“And—oh. And then?” I was encouraging this?
What was wrong with me? I should be outraged that he’d dare touch me, I should be angry that he was taking such liberties with me even though we’d known each other less than three hours. I should…I should be squirming away from his touch because of what had happened earlier.
But I was none of those things.
I was letting him touch me, and I wasenjoyingit, and hoping for more.
He laughed. “That’s not enough?”
He slipped a finger in; I couldn’t believe this was happening. It didn’t seem real, yet it was far too real all at once. It was a fantasy I was sure I was going to wake up from, yet for the time being I was blissfully content to play along with the dirty dream and let this man I’d obviously conjured up from the depths of my clearly depraved imagination do these wicked, dirty things to me, like finger my privates in public, at three in the morning on a quiet neighborhood street.
“And then, if you’re still hungry for more,” he continued, “the nature of my interest would be in seeing you on your knees, naked, with that sweet, sassy mouth I been tryin’ not to kiss all damn night wrapped around my cock, takin’ as much of me as you can.”
I tried to swallow, my throat wouldn’t work, and I was shaking all over, and his finger felt so thick and rough inside me, and I looked down because I wanted to see what this looked like, his finger inside me. God, even his forearm was powerful. He was barely touching me. Barely past the first knuckle of his middle finger, yet I felt absolutely split apart and filled by his touch. And he was curling, then swirling, and dragging it up and then down, and I realized he was just toying with me, letting me get used to his touch. His finger was so big, so dark and tanned and strong, and his knuckles were all so scarred from fighting, and this huge powerful hand was touching me, gently sliding inside me in a way I’ve never experienced, a touch that was sure and unhurried.
“I don’t know if I could do that,” I said, unsure why I was admitting it in the first place.
“Which part?” he asked.
