Page 48 of Beg for You

Her hands flew up and she covered her face. “Oh my God.”

“Even with the stumbling, and sliding off the bed once or twice, it was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” I said and couldn’t hide the amusement in my voice. I was also hard as fuck. Just thinking about the way she looked spread out on my sheets, bare except for a pair of panties, skin damn near glowing, was testing my willpower.

Her eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. “You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“What makes you think that?”

Her gaze dropped to my mouth. “You’re smiling.”

“You said my smile was swoon-worthy.”

She groaned and pulled the sheet over her head. “Don’t tell me what I said. It’s too humiliating.”

I walked over and sat beside her, tugging the sheet back. “It was hot. Drunk Cassy makes my dick hard.”

Her cheeks looked hot enough to start a fire. My dick throbbed behind my zipper.

“What about sober Cassy?” she asked, voice soft. Fuck, I loved that sleepy little rasp she had going on.

She’d let me call her Cassy, had called herself the same thing. It was nothing in the scheme of things, but somehow it felt big. Important. “Princess, there isn’t a version of you that doesn’t make me hard.”

Her eyes dropped to her lap, and she suddenly looked stricken.

This was wrong. I shouldn’t be sitting here imagining all the ways I wanted her or how right it felt having her in my bed, in my place. I should be breaking it off, telling her I couldn’t see her anymore.

But I couldn’t make myself say it. Jesus, that look on her face. I wanted to pull her into my lap and hold her until it was gone. It was selfish dragging this thing between us on longer, but after her suggestion last night that I should paint her, I couldn’t think of anything else. I didn’t care if that made me a sick fucking asshole, wanting to have a painting of her like some messed up memento.

It’s all you’ll have of her when she’s lost to you completely.

All I knew was I needed to paint her like she was now. I needed it.

“You want painkillers? How’s the head?”

Her fingers curled into the covers. “I’m fine. I never get hangovers. I don’t know why. I’m just lucky, I guess.”

“Hungry?”

She shook her head. “I should probably…” She started to wrap the sheet around herself to get up.

“I want to paint you,” I blurted, terrified if I let her walk out that door I’d never get my chance again, because one way or another I had to let her go.

Her eyes shot up to mine and she stilled. “What?”

I cupped her silky-smooth cheek. “I want you to pose for me, Princess. Just like this, how you are now.”

She blinked several times then looked down at herself. “But I’m—”

“Beautiful.”

I could see the conflict in her eyes. She wanted to, but something was holding her back.

“I’ve seen nearly every part of you, Cassy. And there’s not one thing about you that I don’t find fucking gorgeous.” Inside and out.

“You don’t know me, Cal. I have shadows, scars, ugliness that you haven’t seen,” she said, like she was reading my mind.

The irony of her words wasn’t lost on me. She’d just described me.

I gripped the sheet between her breasts where she was holding it to her and applied gentle pressure. “Show me.”