Page 140 of The Comedown

“And?” I ask with a roll of my eyes.

“And…that’s it.”

“To see which food changes the flavor of my cum?”

“Sure.” Julian shrugs, winking.

I drop my head back, staring up at the ceiling with hot cheeks. “I’ve created a monster.”

Chuckling, Julian says, “It pays to be the first.”

“You said women come for you on command.” A weird sound comes from his throat. Or maybe my throat. “But what about before you got famous?”

“What are you asking?”

He eyes me smugly, so I deadpan, “If you were always a shitty lay or if it was something you picked up recently.”

“That’s it,” he says, standing up and lifting me from my chair. “I’ve had enough of your shit.”

“Hey,” I protest, gazing back at the eggs Benedict longingly.

I’m deposited on the bed with Julian falling on top of me before I can return to them though.

“All this time I thought I was straight smashin’,

’til my girl came along, telling me I belong in the trash bin.”

I huff out a laugh and bring my arms up around his neck.

“I didn’t know I was a shitty lay.”

As serious as I can, I tell Julian, “You really are.”

When he buries his face in my neck, tickling the skin there with tiny nips, I buck my whole body.

“Okay, fine. Fine!”

He pauses, waiting.

“You’re not that bad.”

His assault jumps to the other side of my neck, and my laughter ratchets up to decibels my vocal coach would cringe at. I try to push him off but only manage to make his own robe fall down, revealing his sinuous shoulders covered in tattoos.

Near his collarbone there’s a heart with a gnarled arrow through it that I imagine has a painful story.

“Didn’t you have any girlfriends?” I ask seriously, and he finally stops, pulling back to look at me.

“Are we gonna do the numbers thing? Where we confess how many people we’ve slept with?”

“God no.” I’d rather get a root canal.

“Good.” He falls on the mattress beside me, making my body bounce, then roll toward his.

“But you had girlfriends, right? And you never went down on them?”

“I told you I didn’t.”

I consider that, my eyes skating around the room.