Page 53 of Somebody To Love

“Uh oh, am I in trouble?” he said as he sat down beside me.

“Maybe,” I responded.

“If we’re going to do this whole dating thing, then there are a few rules that we need to establish first.”

He crossed his arms and looked at me with a mixture of intrigue and amusement in his eyes.

“These are the rules,” I said, feeling emboldened by having the upper hand. At least, I felt like I had the upper hand.

“Rule number one: complete transparency. For example, if you don’t want to do this anymore,” I said, gesturing in between us, “Just tell me.”

“By ‘this’ you mean have a relationship?”

“Relationship, dating, whatever you want to call it...”

“That rule’s useless because I’m not going anywhere—”

I narrowed my eyes at him and said, “Which brings me to rule number two. No more disappearing acts… after we... you know...”

“Tear each other’s clothes off again? Get naked? Make passionate, dirty, kinky, love?”

I cleared my throat and glared at him. He had a smug expression on his face and it took every ounce of my strength to ignore it.

“You know what I’m talking about,” I ended up growling.

He tried to look contrite and failed.

“And rule number three, which kind of goes back to rule number one—just be honest with me. If you don’t think things are working out between us, tell me. I don’t want to be led on anymore or lied to. And if I find out you’re lying to me about anything, we’re through.”

“Does this include white lies like, oh, honey, of course you look good in that dress.”

I fought back a smile. “That would never be a lie, because I look good in everything.”

“You’re right,” he said, leaning his head against the couch and staring at me. His eyes traveled across my face. “You’re so beautiful that you could wear a paper bag as a dress and I would still try to get in your pants.”

I rolled my eyes. “You need to work on giving compliments. They start off ok and then finish terribly.”

He shrugged and then caught me off-guard when he reached out and stroked the side of my face. His touch was gentle and strangely reassuring. “I’ll stop behaving like a juvenile now and refrain from making sex jokes.”

“That’s a relief.”

He smiled and met my eyes. “You really are beautiful, you know. Ever since the moment you tripped in a puddle of your own doing and fell into my arms, I knew there was something special about you.”

I punched him in the shoulder and he pretended it hurt. He caught my hand and brought it up to his lips. He held my eyes as he kissed it. The simple gesture was sexy in a gallant kind of way. As soon as his lips connected with my skin, that familiar burn of desire caused my skin to flush at his touch.

I pulled my hand away and crossed my arms so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch him. “So what do you think of the rules?”

He sighed and sat back. “I think your rules are fair.”

“But? I know there’s a but coming.”

“No buts.”

I didn’t buy that for a second. But before I could argue with him, he continued talking.

“So do you mind if I watch a little TV with you before I head out?”

I was surprised. That hadn’t been how I had expected this conversation to play out.