Page 35 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

Chapter Thirteen

I’ve never been naked before anyone.

And while I knew tonight I would have to be, I never imagined it would be here.

In a strip club. I thought he’d take me back to his place, his childhood home where he’s staying for now.

And honestly, I was looking forward to it.

That was where I saw him for the first time and to do this—take this huge step when I never ever thought we’d be here—felt poetic.

But as I said, I’ll take it.

So I keep my eyes on him, the only thing I care about, and reach up to take my halo off.

Then I reach down for the zipper of my skirt.

Once it’s dropped to the floor, I grab hold of the hem of my top and he slides even more to the edge, his stare dropping to my fingers, growing thicker.

More focused and intense. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy to do.

It’s so easy to slide my top up and over my heaving chest. So easy to keep going until it’s off and joining the skirt I left in a heap on the floor.

This is the most I’ve ever been naked in front of him, or anyone, in my white bra and panties.

I should be running to cover myself up. I should be doing something about the flush covering my skin, my chest and my throat; the freckles around my ribs and the side of my waist. But I don’t.

Even though I was nervous before, it was more about not being able to give him what he wants, not about baring my body to him. So no, I don’t want to hide.

Not from him.

Besides, he’s wanted this for so long too.

And even though he’s being a giant asshole right now, I know the sight of my partially bare body is affecting him.

There’s a hitch in his breath that’s so clearly visible in the way his chest moves.

He’s really on the edge now, that even a feather can topple him over.

And he wipes his parted mouth with the back of his hand as if the air is so hot and thick in this small, red-lit room.

And all because I’m giving him what he wants, what he so desperately craves.

God, I’ve been such an idiot, saying no to him.

So without further ado, I take the rest of my clothes off.

I unhook my utility bra in the front, roll my shoulders to get it off and then slide my equally unappealing white panties, which may as well be made of silk lace the way his chest is moving, down my legs.

And then the only things on my body are my favorite heels and my belly button ring.

Along with his stare.

His stare is on my body too. All dark and piercing.

Touching , waking goosebumps on my skin.

Making things heavier than before, shakier, more trembling.

More wet. Wetter, so that I swear I can hear my thighs sliding against each other.

I can hear the sloppy sounds of the mess I’m making down there.

And it’s only going to get worse if he doesn’t let up.

If he doesn’t stop looking at me like this.

Like I’m not real.

Like I may be his dream. His dream come true.

All pink and flushed, ripe . Like a strawberry, ready for his sharp teeth, and he’s deciding where to bite me first. From the looks of it, he’s torn between my heaving breasts with their dark pink nipples and my glistening thighs.

He keeps going back and forth between the two.

I take a step toward him then, refusing to make him wait any longer—if he wants to eat me, he can do that—but his eyes skitter up and he commands, “No.”

I fist my fingers at my sides because his stare looks dark, possessed, hungry. “But?—"

“On your knees.”

I freeze. “What?”

He lets a moment tick by. A moment where my heart has slowed its beats and my breaths have stalled. All because every inch of me, naked and pink, is waiting for him to say something. To say what I’m afraid he’s going to.

“Crawl to me,” he commands, his features so tight that his lips barely move.

Holy fuck .

My belly both drops and quivers. Shame makes me flinch so hard that I stumble on my feet. I can’t crawl, can I? I certainly can’t crawl naked. It’s degrading and humiliating and no amount of his asshole behavior or money that I don’t want, can make up for that.

So then why do I want to do it? Why do I want to drop down on my knees so fast that they bleed?

Why is my pussy pulsing so hard that I have a great urge to touch it?

It’s not even about being brave or standing up to him or whatever the fuck I was thinking before.

It’s about the fact I want to do it. I’m dying to do it.

Even as shame is turning my skin heated.

God, this is twisted but I keep looking at him and drop down to my knees. I watch the great fall and rise of his chest, as if he’s breathing with satisfaction that I obeyed him. It makes me hornier as I come down on all fours and crawl.

For him. To him.

The floor is hard and cold, harder and colder than anything I’ve ever encountered before.

And in the back of my mind, I know I should feel uncomfortable.

I should feel the cold seeping into my bones, hardness scraping my bare knees and my palms. I should feel more ashamed than I am at being so vulnerable and exposed.

At how my breasts dangle as I inch along, my nipples so hard that they’re achy.

How the long strands of my hair hang over my shoulder and drag along the floor.

And I do feel it. All of those things including the shame.

It’s just that they only turn me on more.

They make me hotter, sweatier. Sweat slides down my neck like my juices slide down my thighs.

My belly is trembling, and I want to find a way to touch my jiggling breasts.

I want to find a way to play with my hard nipples.

All because I keep my eyes on him. All because I keep looking into his dark, dark eyes that seem so intense and focused, satisfied, and I can’t wait to get to him.

I can’t wait to get between his sprawled thighs, so I’m surrounded by him on all sides. So he can tell me how well I did.

But it doesn’t happen.

As soon as I reach within touching distance of him, his arm strikes out and he wraps it around the back of my neck. He stops me just shy of hitting his knees and pulls me up. My hands fumble and find purchase on his hard thighs as he brings us close, so fucking close, but not touching yet.

Never touching for some reason.

Which should sound crazy, given all the things we’ve done, the thing that I just did, but I can’t deny the fact that I’m touch-starved. I’m kiss- starved. I want him to kiss me. I want him to pull me in his arms, put me in his lap. I want him to take his clothes off so I can see him too.

I want him.

“I was wrong,” he says, his voice sounding stern but needy at the same time; he looks both stern and needy too.

“W-wrong,” I breathe out, nervous.

He narrows his eyes. “I thought I’d like it.”

“But you d-don’t?” I ask fearfully, because isn’t that what I was afraid of?

He shakes his head. “No.”

My heart drops. “Shepard?—”

“I fucking love it,” he says, squeezing my neck.

I blink. “What?”

“And I fucking love it so much ”—he squeezes my neck again, as if for emphasis—“that I don’t know what to do about it. That I don’t fucking know how I’m gonna live without it.”

I dig my nails in his thighs, confused. “Without what?”

He lets a beat pass, licking his lips. “Without you on your knees for me.”

I blink again, my heart racing and racing and soaring in my chest. “Is that why…”

“Is that why what?”

“You always,” I swallow, “insisted that I dance in my heels. Is that why you did it? Because you wanted me to stumble and fall.”

It just occurred to me, and isn’t that the truth? Because every time I stumbled, he’d go all alert. His gaze would sharpen. His spine would snap straight, probably waiting for me to finally fall for him.

He stares into my eyes for a beat. “I insisted that you dance in your heels so when you eventually fell on your knees for me, I’d get to watch the prettiest fucking eyes I’ve ever seen stare up at me from my feet and know that I’ll never see anything more beautiful than that.”

I whisper, my heart racing, “You think my eyes are pretty?”

“I think your eyes are more than pretty,” he tells me, his voice a rough caress. “Everything about you is more than pretty. Everything about you is fucking beautiful and luminous and alive and full of color. But that’s not the point. Anyone can be those things. What you are is something else.”

“What am I?”

He takes his time answering, taking me in, tracing my features with his dark, intense eyes. “Unforgettable.”

I’ve never been that, unforgettable. For anyone.

In fact, I think people forget about me easily.

People ignore me easily. People that matter to me, at least. But not him, apparently.

The man who’s more important to me than he should be.

Who also just gave me the best compliment he could’ve given me.

The best compliment, wrapped up with a bow of thorns. Just like him.

“You don’t have to,” I whisper then.

“I don’t have to what?”

“Live without watching me on my knees.”

His features rearrange themselves then, harden up, go tight, and so do his fingers on my neck. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“What—”

Keeping his eyes on me, he shifts then and fishes something out of his pocket like before. It’s not a wallet or money or anything remotely similar to that. It’s his phone, and when he holds it up in front of me, I’m confused. Until he says, “Tell me what this is.”

I don’t know what it is that makes it clear to me. Maybe the look in his eyes, the hard slant of his jaw. Like he already expects me to not only know what it is but why he has it out.

“You’re not…” I begin, my words stuttering. “You’re not allowed to?—”

“You’re not an employee anymore,” he reminds me.

“But I?—”