Page 64 of Throwing Fire

She doesn’t pout, which she would if she wasn’t getting her way and she really cared about what we were doing. She lies down across the bed. Reaches down below her hips and pulls the nightgown up until it bares her ass.

Okay, if that’s where she wants it.

I stretch one leg across the backs of her thighs. The other along the length of her body. That puts my foot up near her head. Hope my feet don’t stink. I lean over and begin rubbing her firm ass with long, smooth strokes of my fingers andthumbs.

“Hale, what are you doing?”

“Givin’ you an ass rub.”

“Why?”

“Cause you seem to need it. Want to tell me why you keep goin’ after my dick?”

She blows out a breath, a steam-engine exhalation. “Can’t we just fuck?”

“Nope.” I work my way down the backs of her thighs. Back up into the muscles of her butt. Her muscles are tight even when she’s sleeping, but now they’re as taut as high-tension wires. I dig my fingers in, until I feel her begin to relax. Just as think she’s unwinding enough to tell me what’s wrong, she pikes up on her arms and pulls away from me. Yanks the nightgown down over her knees and curls into a ball against the head of the bed.

“Why don’t you want to fuck me?” she demands.

I do, but not when she’s wound tighter than a tension coil. I stretch across the end of her bed. Pat the mattress again. Blow away the cloud of bunny fur that rises around my hand. Damn rabbits.

“I don’t want a butt rub,” she says. Now she’s pouting.

“I want to give you one.”

“Hale.” She crosses her arms over her knees and drops her head into them. “Why am I so bad at this?”

“Ass rubbin’?”

“No,” she groans into her arms.

“Kitten, come here.”

She looks up and I see tears in her eyes. What the fuck?

“Hey.” I slide up the bed. Gather her in my arms. “What happened? First you’re tired. Then you’re trying to give me a hand-job. Then you’re trying to get me to fuck you in the ass. Now you’re crying. What’s going on, kitten?”

“I can’t do it right with you,” she wails.

I smooth her bangs back from her face. “You do everything right with me. What’re you cryin’ about?”

“You don’t want me to give you head. You don’t want to dance with me?—”

Now I get it. The green-eyed monster has reared its ugly head. I shoulda known dancing like that with Myhre would set Kez off.

“C’mere.” I pull her up off the bed and into my arms.

The first couple of steps, I hold her at arm’s length. Until she realizes what I’m doing. Then I reel her in. Hold her tight while I sway to the rhythm of her heartbeat, since there’s no other music. “I’ll dance with you anytime,” I whisper into her ear.

She presses into me. Reaches up and clasps her hands behind my neck. “You still smell like her,” she says resentfully. “That perfume she wears.”

“Strong, huh? Did I ever tell you how glad I am you don’t wear any?”

She sniffles. “No?”

“I like the way you smell. Just yourself. No fake flowers.”

She sways with me. “I’m allergic,” she says, which doesn’t surprise me. This isn’t the first thing she’s been allergic to, my pale, sensitive kitten. “Not to everything. But a lot of perfumes make my nose run.”