Page 52 of Praised
“How?” he asked.
“Don’t worry about that.” I kissed his temple, the top of his ear. “Just give me time to show you what it’s like to be with a man like me.”
“I don’t want to be with a manlikeyou,” he murmured, but even as he said the words, his fingers scrabbled against the top edge of my belt pulling our bodies flush.
“With me then,” I corrected. “I’ll show you what it’s like to be with me.”
“How long?”
I didn’t have a good answer for that because I hadn’t thought that far in advance. Negotiations were done in the bedroom or the boardroom, not alleys behind restaurants while I pleaded my case to a jury of one.
“A month,” I suggested.
I could work with a month. Four weeks, maybe five weekends if I counted the days right. It would be enough time to get to know him, which I was desperate for, and maybe if I was lucky, make him fall in love with me so hard that he didn’t even bother to tell me the time on our little deal had run out.
“What if you don’t like being withme?” he asked, angling his head to the side and giving me more direct access to his ear, which I licked, and his neck, which I peppered with kisses.
This had to work.
As much as I wanted him to wantme, I also needed to understand what it was about him that had me absolutely and almost immediately head over heels for him.
“Then you were right all along.” I nipped his earlobe between my teeth, praying that he wouldn’t be and choosing to pose a much better question before letting him get back to work. “But what if you’re wrong, Rose? What if you’re wrong?”
CHAPTER18
ROSE
If I hada dollar for every time I thought about how different Flynn was from other men, I’d be as rich as he was. Unfortunately, I didn’t, though the fact that each of his friends had tipped me a crisp hundred dollar bill on their seventeen-dollar glasses of whiskey sure helped the situation a lot. Their generosity—or their arrogance—had helped ease the strain of a dead Thursday night in ways I was too embarrassed to say.
Five hundred dollars right into my pocket, plus the $125.00 I earned on the rest of my slow-as-sin shift. That was almost my rent made in one day. As I folded up the bills and slipped them into my pocket, I tried to not think about how it was spare change for them. How none of them would even notice the money missing from their wallets, but how I’d be able to breathe easy with it in mine.
What if you’re wrong, Rose?
After our interlude in the alley where my breakup was refused like it had been negotiable, Flynn went back inside and rallied his friends to finish their drinks. He got them out of the door with a grumbled round of protests, and a text message promised that he’d see me later. I didn’t know when later was, but as soon as I clocked out, my phone buzzed with an incoming message.
The rush of heat in my chest should have been confirmation enough for me that I was in over my head with Flynn, but I pulled my phone out anyway, a stupid huge grin on my face that quickly fell when I found Cody’s name instead of his.
Cody: Are you ready to talk?
My mouth went dry and I smacked my tongue against the roof of it a couple times, trying to draw up some saliva so I didn’t choke.
Ignoring Cody’s message, and the dread that filled my shoes like cement, I swiped through to Flynn’s message thread and sent him a text.
Me: Is it later yet?
He was quick to reply.
Flynn: I was just about to text you.
I knew it.
Flynn: Do you want to come over?
Me: You’re asking
Flynn: Considering you tried to break up with me earlier tonight, I didn’t know if I was in a position to tell you anything.
Me: You *told* me I couldn’t break up with you.
