Page 98 of Score
The orgasm rolls through me without warning, taking me by surprise and taking me under. A wave so intense, lights flicker behind my eyes and my head swims. My whole body goes stiff as the pleasure ravages me. My arms drop limply to my sides and my head flops into the soft linen of the pillow.
He leaves kisses along the sensitive skin inside my thighs, then scoots back to sit at the far end of the bed, knees pulled up and hugged by his elbows. His breathing is harsh and his erection bulges in his pants.
“Why’d you stop?” I practically slur, dragging myself up and crawling toward him. “Let me.”
I reach for his belt, but his hand covers mine and he tips up my chin until our eyes meet. His are still drunk with lust, but sobriety slowly invades the small room. He says the words I was really hoping we could skip.
“I stopped because we need to talk.”
THIRTY
Monk
The fact that I’m not buried balls deep in Verity right now merits an award. A commendation. This level of discipline should be studied for future generations to emulate. Her shirt is still pushed up and her bra is pulled down and her naked breasts taunt me.
“Could you…” I gesture to her chest.
“Oh.” She hastily pulls the bra up and the shirt down. “Sorry.”
“I actually prefer them like that, but if you’re half naked, we ain’t talking.”
She scoots away until her back hits the headboard.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asks, her expression wary like she’s braced for me to say something that will hurt her.
“I’m not rejecting you, Vee. I want this, but first of all…”
I gesture to the small bed we are both crammed on. “I’m not fucking you on Dessi’s twin mattress.”
She snickers, dipping her head and relaxing her shoulders.
“Second of all, if we’re gonna do this, I want us to be on the same page.”
She frowns. “And by ‘this’ you mean—”
“Have a lot of sex behind everybody’s backs,” I deadpan. “Because I don’t want them folk in my business.”
“Amen to that.” She shudders. “Can you imagine how Jill would react?”
“She’d want a full report.Now how many times did she come, Monk? Only once?” I tsk, and pretend to write it down on my invisible pad. “Do. Better.”
“She has three children,” Verity says, more amusement than exasperation in her tone. “You’d think they would fully occupy her.”
“No such luck,” I say, shifting to the serious things we need to discuss, hopefully getting the most unpleasant parts out of the way. “Look, I want to put the past behind us. Like you said, we were young.”
“So young,” she whispers, eyes cast down to her lap where her fingers twist. “Finley feels like a lifetime ago.”
“I’m sure we’ve both changed…” I pause, weighing the words that could derail this conversation. “I know I have. If we do this, I wouldn’t expect to be the only one this time.”
She stares at me, the light in her eyes dimming. “You’re saying that because you think I would cheat on you.”
“I’m saying that because that’s not what this would be. I still want you more than any woman I’ve ever met. We have another four months or so on this film. It’s either iron out this mess between us and move on, or walk around hard as a rock for the immediate future, but this ain’t rainbows and picket fences and soulmate shit.”
I ignore the voice inside reminding me that is exactly what I believed Verity was. Can someone be your soulmate if you’re not theirs? Because even as I say the words, they feel like a betrayal of what I felt back then: that she was it for me.
I just wasn’t it for her.
And I’ve had to reconcile that to make it this far. To have this conversation.
