Page 76 of Praised
“I can wait out your doubts, Rose. I’m not afraid of them.”
“I am,” I rasped.
“Come out with me after dinner.” He stroked his thumb across my bottom lip, pulling down until the cool air of the breath inhaled over my tongue. “Come meet my friends again, get to knowmebetter, and give me a chance to treat you the way you want. The way you deserve.”
“How do I deserve?”
Somehow we’d made it back to the start, the earlier question hanging in the air between us, but this time turned toward Flynn, where I much preferred it.
Flynn huffed out a breath, mouth angling up into the barest tease of a grin before falling back into place. He leaned in closer to me once more, his lips soft against mine as he answered.
“You deserve to be fucked in dark corners in public places because I can’t control myself around you. Because I can’t wait to get you home.”
His voice was so soft, I almost felt the answer from his mouth louder than I actually heard it with my ears.
“You deserve your back against the wall, a cock up your ass, and a hand over your mouth so no one hears you whimper when you come. And it’s because I want you so badly, Rose, I can hardly breathe when I think about it sometimes. I want to worship you; you deserve to be fucking worshiped. Revered.”
I made a very awkward noise in response to that, half moan and half strangled-off cry for how close his words had brought me toward a very unplanned orgasm in the middle of a sushi restaurant. Though, the thought of fucking Flynn in public, like he’d just said…
A shiver tore through my body, radiating from the base of my spine up and down and out and all over. I sucked in a breath, ready to respond.
But Flynn wasn’t done talking.
“Then you deserve to come home to a nice bed with soft, clean sheets, and you deserve to have a man on his back with his legs spread wide so you can bury yourself so deep inside of him the only thing he can see is you.”
“Is…is that what it’s like for you?” I managed to ask, the words crackly and quiet between us. “When you’re with me?”
He didn’t have to answer because the truth was right there between us. It was in the way he tolerated me, the way he waited for me, the way he touched me. When we were together, Flynn was like a satellite, orbiting me. I hadn’t noticed it before, but his words, the confession. It clicked everything into place and I understood for the first time just how much he’d put on the table for me. Flynn hadn’t balked at my nerves or my back and forth. He’d waited and he’d tried, he’d backed off and regrouped, never walking away even when I’d all but asked him to.
“Every single time, Rose,” Flynn said, the words sounding as much like praise as the rest of it. “Every single time.”
CHAPTER25
FLYNN
Kissing Rose wasthe best part of my day. When I kissed him, everything felt steady and real.
Solid.
Like whatever we were finally starting to build was going to last.
And beyond that, he was willing to meet my friends. Likereallymeet them, and that filled me with a giddiness so childlike, I was almost embarrassed about it. But it was Rose who brought those feelings out in me, those wants, those needs. I wanted him to hear how I was feeling. To truly understand the way he’d come in and upturned my life.
For the better.
And when he’d straddled my lap and let me tell him as much, I swear my heart grew in my chest near to the point of bursting. I would tell him every hour of every day if it meant he would keep rewarding me with those soft and pleased kinds of looks he so rarely gave out.
Rose had stayed over the last night, taking me apart with nothing more than his teeth and the gentle friction of his newest pair of lace panties.
I woke up late and worked from home, making him French toast and coffee after he stumbled out of bed. He had to work lunch, so he’d lingered as long as he could before heading back to his house with a promise to return later that night to meet my friends.
And while I waited for him, my phone buzzed so fast and steady against my palm, I could have used it as a goddamn vibrator.
Archie: I don’t know if we should even let you come tonight.
Archie: SCAB
Me: What are you talking about?
