Page 20 of Vigilante Twink and the Cop

“Yes,” Lennox says. “Okay.”

He blinks as if surprised by his own words. Then his eyes light up as he realizes what he’s just agreed to.

I don’t think he regrets his decision, and I’m going to make very sure it stays that way. I’m going to rock his world and blow his mind, and it’s going to be delicious. He’s going to crave me every bit as much as I’ve been craving him.

I take him by the hand and lead him to the bedroom. He follows obediently.

The curtains are open in the bedroom, and the city lights spilling in are creating the perfect mood lighting.

I lead Lennox to the bed. A gentle push on his broad shoulders gives him the right idea, and he sits on the edge of the mattress.

I sway backwards a few steps. Bite my bottom lip and look up at him coyly. My fingers run along the hem of my oversized sweatshirt.

His eyebrows shoot up as comprehension dawns. He runs the tip of his tongue over his lips.

That’s right, Detective Inspector Lennox, tonight you are getting your very own striptease.

I hook a finger into the hem of my sweatshirt and hold it there, waiting for his eyes to drop the way every man’s eyes drop.

They don’t.

Lennox is looking at my face. Just my face, steady, as if there’s something there worth more of his attention than what I’m about to show him. It throws me off my rhythm for a second, and I have to remember what I’m doing with my hands.

I drag the fabric up an inch anyway, slow, and his eyes stay exactly where they are.

“You’re not even looking,” I say, half a laugh in it, half something else I don’t have a name for yet.

“I’m looking right at you.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.” His voice is rough, but his gaze doesn’t move an inch. “I’d rather watch your face.”

I don’t know what to do with that. Nobody has ever wanted my face more than the rest of it, not once, not in a room like this one. And I pull the sweatshirt the rest of the way off, mostly to give myself something to do that isn’t standing here feeling unexpectedly undone by a man who hasn’t even touched me yet.

I toss it aside. His eyes are back on mine before the fabric hits the floor.

I hook my thumbs into my waistband, buying myself a second, and search his face for the thing I’m used to finding in men at this exact moment, the hunger that only sees skin. It isn’t there. What’s there instead is something quieter, something that looks almost like wonder, and it undoes me far more than any amount of staring at my body ever could.

“You’re doing it again,” I say, voice not as steady as I want it.

“Doing what?”

“Looking at me like I’m a person.”

Something moves behind his eyes, gentle and a little sad. “You are one.”

I ease my joggers down, slow, and he doesn’t glance away once, not even when the fabric pools at my feet and I’m standing there with nothing left between us but distance. He just keeps looking at my face like it’s the only part of me he actually came here for.

I close the space between us anyway. Because apparently that’s what he does to me now. Makes me want to give him the parts of myself I’ve never once thought to offer anyone.

“No touching,” I say, though my heart isn’t really in the order.

“I know.”

I lean down, close enough to feel him breathing, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I’m not performing at all.

I was going to do a lap dance. Very raunchy. The whole works. But now I’m not feeling it. I’m feeling something else entirely.