“No, I’m not with him and never will be.” I was nearly at the B and B, now—nearly safe from Baxter, and my own foolish impulses. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with everything. You’re a grown-ass woman, Evangeline. You wanna hang out and drink with some cool as fuck folks till ass o’clock in the morning, you can. You wanna get a little dirty, have some innocent, pleasurable, consensual, adult fun, you can. Your body, your life, your decision.”
“But this…it’s not—it’s notme!” I whirled on him, shouting out loud now. “I don’tdothings like this. I’ve had sex exactly five times, all with Thomas, always in the dark, in a proper bedroom. I’ve never even beenkissedin public! And now, suddenly, I’m letting you pull my pants down and touch me intimately, in public, on a sidewalk, where anyone could see? I should be checked into an asylum!”
“It’s three in the damn morning, Eva. Who’s gonna see? And who cares if they do? They don’t know you, and it’s not like you’re a local who has to see any of these people again anyway. Not to mention, I was blocking anyone from being able to see anything anyway. In case you hadn’t noticed, I kinda make a better door than a window.”
“I don’t know what that is supposed to mean,” I muttered. “You and your odd phrases.”
“It’s not odd, it’s—” he cut himself off with a laugh. “It just means I’m kinda big, and kinda hard to see past. I was in front of you. We were pushed up close. My body was blocking anyone’s view of you, or what I was doing. Anyone who happened to even be awake to see us woulda just seen two people makin’ out, gettin’ a little cozy. They wouldn’t have seen any of your bits, or what I was doing to you.”
“Oh.” I glared up at him. “Still. It’s the principle of the thing. I don’tdothis sort of thing. I’m the daughter of a former United States Senator. I’m expected to behave a certain way. With decorum, and decency. I’m expected to dress conservatively and appropriately. I do not consort with—”
His gaze went hard and angry as he cut in over me. “With guys like me? Yeah, got it. Message received, princess.”
“No, that’s not—I just meant strangers, Baxter. It had nothing to do with what type of person you are.”
“Suuuure, sweetheart,” he said in a sarcastic drawl. “Keep telling yourself that. If your daddy and your precious Thomas caught you with me, something tells me they wouldn’t be pleased.”
“That’s not my concern, and Thomas isn’t my precious anything!” I stepped closer to him and poked his chest. “It’s notlikethat. I am not, have not, nor will I ever judge you for who you are. It seems to me you’re doing an excellent job of judgingyourself, Baxter, and me.”
“How the hell did this get turned around on me?” He poked my chest right back, directly between my breasts, which managed to be oddly non-erogenous, surprisingly. More…accusatory. “You’re the one acting like you’ve committed a crime or some stupid shit. You got finger-banged, and you had a killer orgasm. And you’re welcome, by the way—that’show that shit should feel. You should be proud of yourself. You’re getting out of your fuckin’ shell, experiencing new things. Living for yourself, instead’a for what your mom and dad think or want or expect.”
“I do not have a shell.”
“Say cock, then.”
“No. Choosing to not engage in vulgar speech has nothing to do with whether or not I have a shell.”
“Then touch me. Do something crazy. Kiss me. Invite me in. Flash me your tits. Something you, as you’ve been insisting, never do.”
“What’s that going to prove? You get touched or kissed or flashed, and all I get is embarrassed. A lopsided deal, if you ask me.”
“Just body parts, princess. Nothing embarrassing about it.” He untied the strings of his shorts. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. How about that? I’ll even go first. Just to show you there’s nothing weird or embarrassing or crazy about it. When two people are attracted to each other, it’s totally normal and natural for them look at and touch each otherintimately, as you put it.”
“Baxter, you don’t need to do that. You’re missing the point of what I’m—” I stopped talking abruptly, my breath leaving me in a shocked huff, as Baxter dragged down his shorts to bare his manhood. “Oh—oh my…wow. Um…wow.”
He was massively erect. Thick, pink, and straining.Enormous. I felt faint just looking at it. And a little tempted to touch it, just to see what something like that felt like in my hand. Instead, I clenched my fists behind my back.
“Put it away, Baxter,” I said.
“Why? Don’t you like it? Don’t like looking at it? It’s a pretty nice one, I’ve been told.”
I sucked in a deep breath, and tried to keep my eyes on his, but my gaze kept wandering back down to the absurdly big, absurdly straight, absurdly incredible monster between his legs. “That’s not the point.”
He inched closer. Too close. Within reach. My hands shook and I clenched them even harder behind my back. “Whatisthe point then, princess?”
“I don’t—god, I don’t know.” I closed my eyes, the only way to stop seeing thatthing. “You’re confusing me.”
“ ’Cause you live in a shell. A box. A cage. Whatever you want to call it. You don’t know how to get out there and take what you want out of life.” He was whispering now, and he was so close I could smell him and feel his heat, and if I opened my eyes or let my hands unclench and move between us, I would be touching him. “Life is short, princess. You gotta just…reach out and take what you want.”
“I’m not touching your…your—I’m not touching you, Baxter.”
He chuckled, and I felt him move, letting his shorts snap back into place, covering him. “You want to, though.”
We were in the middle of the street, dead center in the middle of an intersection, underneath a flashing yellow traffic light. All the lights in the windows of the buildings around us were dark, and the moon above was a bright waxing half-moon, and there were a countless million stars twinkling and gleaming. It was cool out, with a steady breeze ruffling my hair. A cricket chirped, somewhere.
“What I want is to sleep. I was up at six this morning, and I’ve flown across the entire country. I ran away from my father and his bodyguards, and then I watched a brutal fight happen and I got blood sprayed all over me,intentionally, and then I was assaulted, andthenI watched you brutalize the men assaulting me, and I think your brother murdered them…and then I met your entire family and they all know what happened to me, and your sisters-in-law seem to think I’m part of thegangnow or something, and I don’t even have any real girlfriends that I trust and I’m an only child so I don’t knowhowto be part of a group like your family even if Iwantedto be, or could be. And then—and thenyou…I let you touch me in public and you kissed me and you showed me your…yourthing, and I’m confused and overwhelmed and exhausted and I don’t know what I want, except that I want to lay down and have it just stop beingtodayfor a little bit.”
