Page 61 of Praised
Flynn slowly untangled my legs from around him, leaving me cold and messy. I watched him climb out of bed and walk to the bathroom, the tanned globes of his ass firm and lifted. The muscles in his back were solid and visible, his thighs much the same. He went into the en suite, wetting a washcloth and coming back to sit on the edge of the bed.
Watching Flynn gave me a sense of contentment that coiled in my belly and felt a lot like fear. It was a dangerous emotion, something that I needed to try my best to keep in check, even though Flynn made it nearly impossible to keep my guard up around him.
He took my hand and cleaned me up, wiping our cum from the webbing of my hand, one finger at a time. His gaze sat intent on the task, his eyes tracing over my skin like lasers as he searched out dirty spots that needed cleaning. Flynn softly wiped my stomach, the fold of my thigh, and farther back still over my well-used hole. When he wrapped the cloth around my shaft and gave a gentle pull up my length, I moaned, arching off the bed and happily rolling toward him for more.
“Let me get you now,” I offered, holding out a freshly cleaned hand for the cloth.
He made a tutting sound and shook his head, keeping the cloth out of reach. “I can get it,” he said.
I yawned, stretching out against his sheets like a starfish. “What if I want to?”
“Then you can do it next time.” He stood up and gave a rougher tug down his own cock than he’d given me, corner of his mouth twisting into a grimace as he moved, no doubt from the sensitivity. “Or the time after that. Or the time after that.”
He gestured in the air with the rag and padded back into the bathroom where he gave himself the same cleaning he’d offered me, though with noticeably less care and kindness. I took the opportunity to slide out of the wet spot and get comfortable on the sheets. The fire still crackled across the room and I yawned again, waiting for him to come to bed, hating how easy it would be to get used to him and everything he had to offer.
The intrusive thoughts about sabotaging my relationship with Flynn before it even had a chance to get started were the last thing I remembered before falling asleep. I wasn’t even aware of him coming to bed, but when I woke up to sharp-angled rays of light slashing their way across my face, I realized I had. Flynn was still absent from the bed, but quiet sounds from the kitchen confirmed he was still in the house.
I hadn’t planned on spending the night and I didn’t have any clean clothes. I sure as shit didn’t want to put on my dirty old laundry-day underwear again.
Let him take you shopping, an annoying voice in my head whispered.If you let him buy you nice things, you could keep them here and this wouldn’t be an issue.
The logic was sound, but that didn’t mean I liked it.
Wrapping the sheet around my waist, I crawled out of bed and kicked my legs free. The sheet was massive, but there was only so much bunching and gathering I could do and still keep myself covered. I shuffled out into the main part of the house and found Flynn hunched over the island, glaring at his laptop screen, phone beside his hand.
“Are you working?” I asked.
He sat up, back going rigid before he turned toward me. There was a change in him, something so clear I would have been able to see it in the dark. His furrowed brows softened, and the chocolate of his eyes turned golden when he saw me. His hands fell into his lap and his head cocked to the side, mouth twisting from a frown into an appreciative line.
My cheeks burned from his appraisal, so deep it hurt, and I shifted the gathered sheets into one hand to cover half my face with the other.
Flynn snapped the lid of his laptop closed and shook his head. “It’s not important.”
“I didn’t mean to intrude.”
He shook his head again. “You’re not.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Flynn’s gaze raked over me, from my toes to the tangled mess of hair on top of my head. I should have stopped in the bathroom before coming out. God knew what kind of disaster I looked like with my curls all tangled and my eyes probably puffy from how late we were up the night before. I had to look like awful, but the way he watched me gave me the distinct impression he saw a different version of me than I did.
“How am I looking at you?” he asked.
I swallowed, turning my attention toward the floor instead of his face. But even as I tried to count the grain in the wood planks beneath my feet, I could feel him watching me, studying me, cataloging me.
Devouring me.
“Like that,” I said, waving my hand toward him dismissively.
“Like you’re gorgeous?” he asked, causing the ache in my cheeks to deepen. “Like you’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen?”
“Flynn.”
I didn’t know why I said his name, because as much as I wanted him to stop, I never wanted him to stop.
When was the last time anyone besides Flynn had called me beautiful?
Called me gorgeous?
