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To be fair, I was okay with that. A little rough, inexperienced sex had its benefit some of the time, after all, and if it was Ruben, I was pretty sure I could forgive most things.

Instead, he decides to eat me out? It was almost enough to make me laugh—if it wasn’t for the movements of his tongue against my folds.

Again, men often had no fucking idea what they were doing and treated eating a girl out like it was just a quick kindness—with lots of drool—hoping that was enough. Not Ruben, though. Instead, his every touch seemed centered on discovering my entire pussy, of ensuring no tiny piece of me went unmapped with his tongue and his lips.

I made no sounds—I was sure of that—but he must have paid attention to my breathing or any other way my body betrayed my true feelings, because anything that felt exceptionally good, he repeated as though to make sure he’d gotten it right.

It meant it didn’t take long, between the massage and his skilled lips, that he brought me so close to release that I wondered if I could hold out.

I didn’t normally hold back much. That wasn’t my style. I much preferred letting myself go. It wasn’t like coming once was going to end a night, after all, and there wasnothingworse than trying to hold back and never finding that place again, than going to bed wound up and horny all because I’d tried to resist.

It was like refusing dinner because you thought you were getting something better later, than that thing getting canceled, so you had to go to sleep hungry.

I didn’t like sleeping hungry or horny, so I rarely resisted.

However, something about this moment felt so fragile, I feared interrupting it. Funny to think about Ruben as innocent, but a part of me worried that if I came, he might get scared off, that he’d skitter back to the friend zone we’d been in before if I dared break this little game we played.

His lips left my body for a moment though his breath still warmed me. “Go ahead,” he whispered, the words absolutely sinful in the small, silent room. “This will help you sleep, too.”

Thatshook apart any fantasies, and I wondered if I’d be able to come at all after it.

Sleep?

Sure, I knew the game we were playing, that we were pretending this was just a massage, but it loosened my grip on everything. Surely, with his lips literally on my clit, he didn’t want to act as though he were still just doing me a favor, did he?

Is that what he thought this was? Just something he did because I’d walked up and down those ladders? Because I was sore and he wanted me to sleep?

I wasn’t sure I really believed that, that he’d go this far, but Ruben was difficult to understand. Maybe it was. Maybe he’d started this and realized he didn’t feel the way he thought?

Maybe I’d just hit that point where people usually decided I was too much.

He erased the fear that I wouldn’t get off, however, when he focused his attention on my clit, when he dove back in as though my orgasm were his own personal trophy.

And I came despite everything, despite the questions, the uncertainty. I came apart beneath him, unable to hold myself together, to keep that part of me hidden.

As I trembled afterward, my body overly sensitive, I knew that was it. He wasn’t going to keep going. Sure enough, he pulled a blanket over me and returned to the book at the desk, leaving me there.

This fucking sucks.

Chapter Ten

Morning-afters were inevitably awkward. It was like some unwritten rule that everyone had to follow, the idea that we wouldn’t be able to act friendly, that we had to feel weird and uncomfortable.

And this morning sure did fucking follow that trend.

Ruben hadn’t said anything about the night before. I’d woken up to find him gone, and had thought for a moment he’d dined and dashed on me.

However, he’d shown back up, surprised I’d woken so early, and with food. I could forgive most people if they bought me food, as it turned out.

We’d eaten in the room in painful silence before checking out and heading back toward home around ten in the morning. It meant I hadn’t gotten enough sleep to feel well rested, but I wouldn’t pass out, either.

The truck turned out to be just as uncomfortable as the hotel room, telling me that our awkwardness was hardly location related.

“About last night,” Ruben started, his gaze locked forward.

Nope.

He had that flat tone and I wasn’t sure I could handle him telling me that it was all a misunderstanding, that he’d done it to help me relax, because he knew I’d needed the sleep. What if he said it was some reward for me having gone on the trip and us finding the book?