Page 83 of The Stranger

“I knew you would be beautiful.” He rolls my hardened nipple between the pads of his fingers. I give a soft moan, and my legs seem to fall wider all on their own. “Yes, that’s it. Let me see you. Let me drink you in.”

The way he parts me with his thumb, swiping through my wetness, feels like a taunt. I sound so slick, I think as I close my eyes, rolling my lips together as I try to retain some impression of control.

“Open your eyes, little flower.” His eyes glint in the low light as his thumb makes another teasing pass.

My body reacts almost violently, a harsh breath expelled from my mouth.

“Good?” He circles the pad of his thumb.

“Yeah. Yes.” I feel like I’m levitating, high on the moment as I squirm, struggling to keep that contact.

“I’ve been dreaming of tasting you again. Would you like that? To see me on my knees for you.”

“Oh, God.”

“If I fuck you with my tongue, will you make those breathy little noises again? Will you beg for me?”

His dirty words spark inside me like tiny, pleasurable jolts, but I clamp my mouth shut. I want this more than I want propriety, or decency, or anything else I’ve ever told myself is right or true. But the man’s ego is big enough.

“I’ll make you come like no one else, little flower.”

“That remains to be seen.” I didn’t mean to say that, to goad him, but the man is scrambling my brain.

His ego reveals itself in the tilt of his mouth, though he says nothing else.

Why the heck does that do it for me?

“You talk a good game at any rate,” I say with more carelessness than I really possess. Brave. Be brave, I tell myself as I arch and stretch, leaning back on my palm. Look at the way his eyes follow.

“You do want me to use my mouth for something else.” The dark amusement in his tone makes me want to smother him with a certain part of my anatomy.

His wet thumb finds my clit again. I stifle a whimper as it rotates. Lightly pets.

“Just don’t build your hopes up.”

The look that spreads across his face should be illegal. “Idiots,” he mutters before expelling a whole lot of French, cursing the fecklessness of modern men. “Three times,” he then says in English. Kind of out of nowhere.

“No, it was only once.”

“Three times tonight,” he replies, his gaze full of heat and all kinds of promises. I almost jump as his other hand lands on my thigh, opening me up.

“Let’s make things a little more interesting. For us both. You will come three times tonight.”

I begin to laugh, chuckle. Scoff, maybe.

“Or you can leave.”

My amusement cuts off mid-chuckle, and I feel my brow flicker. Talk about confidence. Maybe after this, I’ll want to leave. To run far away to a place where I won’t have to see him silently blame me. Where he won’t see me cringe when I think of how he couldn’t make me come once, never mind three times.

As though he sees those fears in me, his thumb slips away.

“I’ll take that bet,” I whisper, feeling the loss and yearning for the opposite. What I don’t expect is for him to lift his thumb to his lips. For him to lick it. For his lashes to cast shadows against his cheeks as he sucks on it with the most carnal groan.

I’ve been lashed by a live wire at the sight. He sounds like I do when eating cake.

“My sweet little flower,” he says, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire. I want to melt at the endearment—and I want to protest at his use of it. “I am going to make you scream.”

I also want to demand he gets on the eating thing when he suddenly pinches my clit between his fingers.