Page 75 of Praised
“Why would you want to keep someone who cheats on you?” Flynn asked, not sounding cruel in the slightest, which only made my cheeks burn with more embarrassment.
“I didn’t, but…I’m trying to explain why I am how I am.”
“I don’t have a problem with how you are,” Flynn offered. “I happen to actually enjoy who you are very much.”
“I know and I love you for that—”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and if Flynn heard the ill-timed confession, he didn’t acknowledge it in any discernible way. I gave my shoulders a wiggle and tried to brush off the admission and get back to the point, even though I wasn’t sure what the pointwas.
“I think the moral of the story,” I said, “is why should I expect you to stay faithful to me when Cody didn’t manage it.”
Flynn pulled away from me slightly, giving his neck a crack before he shifted his body evenmoretoward me. He took my hands in his and moved me as well until our knees brushed together and my back pressed against the restaurant wall. I had nowhere to look but into his eyes, nothing to smell but the subtle waft of his cologne and the ginger on the table to my right, nothing to feel but the heat rolling off his body in waves so intense I actually wondered if I was going to combust.
“That’s why I was the way I was before. With the demands, and the back and forth, and being so fucking stubborn about you,” I whispered.
Flynn’s dark eyes did a slow study of my face, from the tight lines I knew had popped up around the edges of my frown and mole by my ear that I’d spent two years debating getting removed. He scanned me and catalogued me, hands still hot and big around mine, body and presence more commanding than anyone I’d ever met.
It was silly, I thought, in that moment to have ever been back and forth about a man like Flynn because he was just that. He was a man, where Cody had been a boy, and sitting under the weight of Flynn’s stare for even a single second should have been enough confirmation to me that I was in safe—and talented—hands.
“That feels like an apology and you don’t owe me one,” he said quietly. “You’re here now, and that’s what matters. But to your earlier question, Rose. You can expect me to be faithful to you because that’s the kind of man I am, and I have no issue doing the work to prove that to you. I don’t know anything about Cody besides what Grayson had to say, which wasn’t very complimentary, but I know myself better than most men do.”
“I know.” In fact, I’d never doubted that fact about Flynn in the least.
“I’ve worked hard for all the things I have,” he went on. “The house, the car, the bank account…the ability to buy you as much underwear as you like.”
With that, he gave me a soft and seductive grin that reminded me exactly how close to my cock—and said underwear—his hand really was.
“And the one thing I want you to know about men like me, Rose, is we protect the things that are ours. And you’re mine, aren’t you, baby?”
I choked out a noise that I hoped sounded affirmative.
“That’s what I thought,” he murmured, still holding my stare with the intensity and heat of a thousand burning suns. “And if protecting you sometimes looks like getting whiplash because you’re scared or nervous, than I get whiplash. If protecting you looks like getting on my back and spreading my legs so you can rut into me until your bones turn to jelly, then you climb on top and fuck me into oblivion.”
“We’re in public,” I whispered, more for myself than anyone else because my cock had hardened so fast at his words, I worried about how we’d get out of the restaurant without getting the cops called for an indecency charge.
“I’m not scared of work. I’m not scared of a challenge. And I’ve never backed down from a fight. You can push and pull all you need to, Rose, but I’ve known since the first time your lips touched mine that I was all in for you.”
“Shut up,” I begged, wrapping my hand around the back of neck and pulling his mouth against mine.
Flynn hummed happily as our lips crashed together, and I hoped his mouth was able to swallow down the whiny and desperate moans that I made as my body lit up under his touch. I wanted to kiss him more, kiss him harder, deeper, but the quiet clank of chopsticks against porcelain in the background reminded me we were in public.
We werein public.
“I want you so much,” I whispered. “But you scare me.”
He pressed his forehead against mine, lips slightly parted and eyes closed. His dark lashes fanned out against his cheekbones. My hand was still curled around the back of his neck, fingertips playing in the clipped ends of his hair while we both worked on calming ourselves down.
“I’m scared too,” he said softly. “You’ve made me question every single thing I’ve ever wanted for my life and I’m not always sure what to do with you.”
“But you don’t push me away. You don’t back off.”
“That’s not the kind of man I’ve ever been and I don’t see myself starting now.”
I gulped down a swallow. “Am I just a game? A challenge for you?”
“For Cody maybe.”
I winced at his name on Flynn’s tongue, hating that Cody still took up any space in my head or my life. I’d wanted him to go away. Told him we were over so many times I’d lost count, but like a cockroach, he kept coming back. Even if I blocked his number, he knew where I worked, he knew where Drake liked to party. There were ways for him to find me, to annoy me, to taint the happiness Flynn was offering me on a golden fucking platter.
