6. Nina
NINA
Adam was never in the cards.
For all the reasons I laid out in my head when Miss Sheridan had inquired.
She wasn’t the only one in my life who’d nudged me about Adam.
My friend Lily had at her wedding, tugging me aside and asking when I was going to go for it.
Your wedding is making you loopy , I’d teased.
My friend Kate had simply arched a dubious brow.
Had they seen something in him I hadn’t?
What would I see if I turned around?
Would I see sunshine, as I always saw with this man?
Or would I see midnight? Another side of Adam?
Part of me was terrified; another part was thrilled.
My mind raced through the myriad possibilities—what would happen to us if I asked him to bite me, have me, take me?
Discover me on the bed and watch me touch myself?
For once in my life, I wanted to be the one who was seen.
I wanted to be watched. I craved the chance to say things like watch me strip, watch me tease, watch me taunt .
Then I’d add, Tie me up and make me take it hard .
With Adam?
My pulse beat between my legs, the first sign.
But there were so many what-ifs to Adam as number ten.
We were frozen, poised on the edge of a building, staring down at the ground below, so far away. If we jumped, would there be a safe landing?
I licked my lips and pushed out words. It felt as if I were speaking for the first time. “What happens if I ask you?”
It was an open-ended question. He could answer it in many ways.
A low growl was his first reply, a dirty hum that sent a new wave of tingles all over me.
His mouth was dangerously close to my ear as he gave the rest of his answer.
“Then I’d say yes. Then we’d work through your list. I’d fulfill all your filthy, fantastic dreams. You’d say no whenever you wanted.
You’d set the rules, you’d set the boundaries, and I’d respect them,” he said, and I trembled from the intensity of his words, the depth of his understanding.
I shuddered, too, from his touch, because as he spoke, he slid a hand down my side, curling it over my hip.
His touch was electric. Sparks thrummed through me.
“And what happens after I set the boundaries?” I asked, breathless and so eager, too, for more of his answers.
With a rasp I’d never heard from him before, he said, “Then I’ll tell you to get on your knees and suck me so deep you feel it in the back of your throat.
Or I’ll bend you over the table and tie your wrists above your head so I can have my wicked way with your sweet pussy.
So I can tease you and taunt you and deny your orgasms till I say you’re good and ready to come. ”
A gust of breath escaped my lips. My knees wobbled. Those were my fantasies. Those were on my list. He’d read it, and he wasn’t running. He was closing in on me, wanting. I could feel his desire. I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
Adam was turning me on in ways I’d never anticipated.
But dirty words weren’t enough. Sharing desires wasn’t sufficient either.
I needed to know we’d be okay. I needed to be certain we’d stay friends. That mattered more than this exquisite ache between my legs.
“But what happens to us?” I asked, while I longed to grab the counter, bend my body into an L, and beg him to yank down my jeans.
“What happens after dark, stays after dark,” he said, a play on the city’s famous motto.
“Sex is sex, and friendship is friendship, and we call the shots. We set the ground rules. Here’s mine: Consent comes first. You come second, third, fourth, and many more times.
You come hard, you come relentlessly, you come when I say you come, you come again and again on my face, on my cock, on your toys, tied up, pushed down, with my fingers in you, however the hell you want.
Then I come. Then we stay friends. How’s that for ground rules? ”
I quivered, and the ache between my legs turned into a throb. A demanding, heavy throb that insisted on being answered.
Maybe Adam was in the cards.
Maybe he was all the cards.
“Promise we stay friends?” I asked, my voice featherlight and laced with burgeoning desire—desire I hadn’t seen coming. Desire I’d never expected.
What was happening to me? Had Evangeline and Marco’s passion unleashed a lust monster in me? Had Aphrodite done this? Sent my fantasies into overdrive with my best guy friend?
Adam.
Charming, clever, thoughtful Adam.
Adam was the guy next door.
But tonight, he was the man gripping my hip, digging his fingers hard into my flesh.
My cells cried out for his touch.
For his command.
And for his rough edge that I hadn’t known existed.
He was showing it to me, just as I was revealing to him my secrets. He hadn’t asked either—hadn’t inquired why I was a virgin. It wasn’t a state secret, but I didn’t want to serve up my choices at this moment. I’d share that story with him another time.
“Damn straight we stay friends,” he growled. “Isn’t that what we were at dinner? Isn’t that what we are all the time?”
“Yes. Yes, we are,” I said with no reservations.
“And do you trust me?”
I blinked. “How can you ask me that? You have a key to my home. I trust you completely.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Good. I always want to be the man you trust. And that’s the kind of man you need for number ten.”
“That is what I need.” I took a beat, considering the enormity of the step we were taking.
But then, everything made perfect sense.
I didn’t want a stranger. I didn’t want a hookup.
I wanted to feel safe as I explored. “So that’s it?
Those are the rules of engagement for my sex list?
” I asked, because my logical brain liked to raise its hand at the most inopportune moments.
Like when Adam’s thick erection pressed against my ass. The weight of his hard-on even through all these layers of clothing was intense.
“Those are the rules of engagement for your dirty, delicious, enticing, sexy-as-sin list. Unless you have any you want to add,” he said, then rubbed the scruff of his jaw against my cheek.
My body screamed for contact. My mind loved the way he’d elaborated on my list, how he’d referred to it.
But there was one more rule to establish. “Protection,” I whispered.
“I have condoms. We’ll use them every time. No questions asked,” he said, and I smiled privately.
I loved that he assumed I wasn’t on protection already. If I were him, I’d assume that too. “I’m on protection and have been for years.”
“You are?” His tone was laced with question. Understandably. But now was not the time to dive into why.
“Yes. If you’re clean we don’t have to use condoms,” I said. “Are you? Have you been tested?”
His groan lasted for several carnal seconds. “I am. Clean bill of health at my last physical. I haven’t been with anyone since.”
I broke the hold he had on my hip. I spun around and took a few steps backward to the kitchen counter, feeling naughty, daring.
From a few feet away, I stared at my friend with new eyes, drinking in the cut of his jaw, the fire in his eyes, the expanse of his hard chest.
My eyes roamed over him. He was fully dressed, but fully revealed too. The outline of his arousal was visible through his pants. Thick and firm.
My mouth watered as I stared at the shape of it.
But tonight I wanted something else.
Something for me.
I didn’t need to start at the beginning of my list. The first three items set the tone. I’d cross them off as I worked through the others.
I knew where to start.
“Okay, then. Now that we’ve tackled the rules of engagement, I’d like to try number four, please.”