Page 74 of Praised
What’s your damage, kid?
“How do you figure?” I asked, angling my head toward Flynn without pushing him away.
“Tell me first why you don’t believe it.”
I sighed and leaned against him. “I don’t want to do this exercise.”
“Please?”
The waiter came by and collected our empty plates without a word, which I supposed was the kind of service a place like this offered. I’d always been told it was rude to not engage the customer when you came by the table, but apparently I was out of my element in more ways than one. Flynn’s question might as well have thrown me into a whirlpool for how uncomfortable it made me, but I wanted to answer him honestly and fairly. I’d spent enough time jerking both of us around because of my own worries and fears about being with a man like him. After we’d agreed to give things an honest go, the least I could do was offer him sincerity and truth.
“You know how you kissed me at Rapture that night we met?” I asked.
He was still leaned in close to me, nose buried in my hair in a way that had me feeling far more special than I had any right.
“I think about it often,” he answered.
“No one has ever kissed me like that before.”
“All the more reason to do lots of it now.” His hand crept higher and he used his body to press me into the corner of the booth.
Admittedly, I didn’t hate the idea.
Kissing Flynn was almost as good as sleeping with him, two things I enjoyed above many others. But there was something about the way he kissed that set the rest of it apart.
“I’m trying to answer you,” I gasped, his fingers grazing a little too close for comfort considering justhowpublic we were.
“Right.” He withdrew his hand, but not his body. “Sorry.”
“I…I’m younger than you.”
Flynn hummed in my ear, clearly disagreeing with me.
“I don’t have as much—”
“You have me,” he interrupted, and I closed my eyes. “Aren’t I worth something?”
“Worth a lot of things.” I cleared my throat. “Did Grayson tell you about Cody?”
The subtle flex of Flynn’s hand against my thigh was as much of a yes as any verbal confession would have been.
“Vaguely.”
“I really liked him. At the time, I thought I could have loved him. But…”
“Grayson said he cheated.”
I nodded. “With his roommate. I caught them.”
“I’m sorry.”
I set my hand on top of his, threading our fingers together even as his palm pressed down against my leg.
“I’d just found out right before that night I met you, and I…he had me all upside down about things. I wasn’t myself.”
Flynn waited for me to go on, almost still as a statue beside me.
“I think…I think the way things went with him has me convinced that I don’t deserve to have good things or that I won’t be able to keep them because I couldn’t keep him.”
