As I catch my breath, Arden stands, taking me again by the neck and pulling my face to his. He kisses me hard and I’m gathering up the energy to continue when he releases me.
Arden takes a step back, grabbing my robe from the floor and holding it out to me.
“Ready to talk now?”
I think my jaw just dislocated from how fast it fell open. “Talk? Now? What about continuing what we started?”
“Oh, we’re finished.” He holds the robe out to me again and I grab it. Arden walks to the living room, sits on the couch and pats the cushion next to me in offering.
“You didn’t…did you?”
He chuckles. “No, Danika. I’m not fourteen years old. That’s all I wanted to do, for now.”
“For now…” I put on the robe and hesitantly walk toward him on the couch. I want to run in any other direction besides this one but I did promise to talk to him and after that selflessly mindblowing orgasm he gave me, I can’t exactly up and leave.
“Let’s talk, brat.”
Immediately, I feel my cheeks flush. “I don’t think you can call me that casually anymore,” I comment, looking anywhere but at him.
I hear the smile in his voice. “Oh, I absolutely can.” He takes my chin and forces my eyes to meet his. “What do you want from this? From me?
“We’re just jumping right in, huh?”
“I think it’s fair to say we’ve already jumped. Now we’re falling and trying to figure out if we’re landing on a mountain of pillows or a field of jagged rock.”
“Poetic.”
“Dani.”
“Okay, okay, just…hold on.” Bolting from the couch, I run into my room, quickly replacing the robe and what’s left of my sexy black set with shorts and a tank top. Grabbing my notebook from my bedside table, I squat back on the couch in pretzel position.
“I wrote some things down.”
“Why did you change?”
“I prefer to be fully clothed for this conversation.”
“Prudent but disappointing.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I open my notebook to the page titled “imagine if you fucked Arden.” He glimpses at the page and meets my eyes with raised eyebrows.
“Been thinking about this much?”
I shrug. “Just all day. And maybe some time before that…” I let my voice trail off so as not to truly tell him the length of time in which I’ve envisioned having sex with my best friend’s brother. The time might span years for all I know.
I’ve always been a bit of a loose cannon. A therapist would probably consider me “love starved” because of my upbringing and I have no issue with “giving it away” whenever I wanted to. I have no regrets about my sexual history.
And ever since Arden gave me my very first kiss, he’s always been the one to grace my nighttime visions. Well, unless I was in a relationship or going through a rewatch ofGilmore Girls.Luke Danes could always get it.
Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this much longer than he has, but there’s no way I’m going to tell him that.
“I have three rules.”
“Rules?”
“If we’re going to do this, we need rules, Arden.”
“Do what? Date?”