“Peach, I already knew that from the moment you first walked in the classroom. I mean, you were wearing a hoodie that said Straight Outta Hogwarts. Why do you think I took such a shine to you?”
“You were an asshole. That was you taking a shine to me?” She throws up her hands. “That’s it, I really don’t understand guys.”
I take a few steps toward her until I’m just a foot away. Up close I can see her pulse in her throat, the way her eyes take me in until they’re nearly brimming with something so vivid and wild, it’s hard to look away.
“We’re pretty simple creatures,” I tell her, my voice husky in our proximity, holding her gaze, urging her to not be afraid. Because I know she is. I know she’s afraid of so many things, most of all letting go. “We just want the pretty girl to like us.”
She swallows hard and I’m staring at the freckles on her throat, her collarbone, the creamy white of her skin. I wonder how she tastes, how she feels. I wonder if she knows just how alike we really are, how this is something we both need.
But she averts her eyes, as she always does when I get too close, when I stare too long and she brushes past me, leaving me cold. “We should get to work,” she says briskly, heading out to the kitchen.
“Yup,” I say slowly, taking a moment to breathe and compose myself before I follow her.
She putters about the kitchen table, clearing it the mounds of makeup and setting up her computer, Kindle and notebook. She’s become Robot Amanda again, her eyes gone hard, her lip stiff. I scared her, enough that she’s regressed to the girl I knew in class, but I don’t regret what I’ve said. I’m tired of pretending that I don’t want to do to her all the things we’re writing about.
I’m still standing there watching her, so she pauses and looks up at me over her glasses. “What?”
I shake my head and exhale through my nose. “Don’t worry about it.”
She holds my gaze for a moment and something passes over her. Regret, maybe. Then she nods. “Sit down. Let’s work.”
And so we do. And for the first time in a long time, it’s strained. I’m about to suggest maybe we need the Estonian vodka anyway when she lets out an exasperated sigh over something she’s reading.
It happens to be something I wrote.
“What?” I ask, wondering what I did wrong.
She gives me the are you kidding me? look. “Okay, I was ignoring it earlier but I think you need to get a grip on some of this shit. This simply does not happen.”
“Explain, please.”
“I just think it’s unrealistic for there to be so much talking, let alone the fact that the first time they do it it’s in a public place.”
“Too much talking?”
“Yeah.” she scans over the document. “You know, give me your cock, oh you feel so good, harder, harder, you’re so big, fuck me harder big boy.”
“Have you even had good sex?” I ask incredulously.
She flinches. “Of course I have. And it’s none of your business.”
“We’re writing about sex. It’s completely my business. I’m not letting you interject your edits based on your personal experiences about sex because believe me, if the sex is good, you’re moaning my name.”
She raises her chin. “Maybe all those girls were faking it.”
Oh, brilliant.
“Excuse me?” I say, hands pressed against the table, nearly getting out of my chair. “You have no idea. I pride myself in giving a girl as many bloody orgasms as she can handle.”
“Bloody orgasms don’t sound like fun,” she jokes softly.
“They can be if you’re into knife play,” I tell her, even though that’s not exactly what I meant. Still, she scrunches up her nose. “Don’t knock it until you try it, but that’s neither here nor there. When you were with Alan, he must have made you come at least a few times.”
If he didn’t, I feel like finding the guy and showing him a thing or two for wasting four years of her life.
“Yeah,” she says flatly.
“And in the middle of that orgasm, didn’t you want to yell a few things?”
“Sometimes.”
“And why didn’t you?”
She looks at her nails as if they’re suddenly fascinating. “It didn’t seem right. It was…too intimate. I would have felt dumb. He didn’t like any of that stuff.”
The plot thickens. “Any of what stuff?”
“Sex that didn’t involve the missionary position or the bed.”
My mouth drops open. My brain and penis can’t compute this. “I feel so sorry for you.”
We must remedy this.
She glares at me. “It’s not like I didn’t want to do it. I did. And he did try it. Most of it. But it always went back to the same old.”
I knew it. She’s a nerd on the streets and a freak in the sheets.
“I don’t mean to brag,” I tell her in all seriousness. “But you do realize that I could give you an orgasm in thirty seconds.”
Her eyes widen. I can’t tell if she’s horrified or intrigued. “I don’t believe you and I don’t want you to try.”
She’s not getting it. I frown, trying to explain. “If you’re having good sex and it’s with someone you’re comfortable with, you won’t worry about holding back. You’ll cry out all the nonsense you want, you’ll make noises like a pig and scream like you’re on fire because you truly can’t have a good orgasm unless you’re letting go on all accounts.” I lean back in my chair and study her, running my fingers along my jaw. “I would venture that every time you came with your ex, you were only experiencing half of what you should have been. How is it with your vibrators?”