Page 10 of Bite Me
I tore off the mask, sucking in lungfuls of crisp air. Felt like I’d been breathing mostly CO2 before that. Jesus. I shook my head to clear it. “I know, but I couldn’t remember where the key was.”
“What?!” Jesse rolled upright, stricken. “Is it lost?”
I started patting down my pockets. “I don’t think so, no. I’m just saying at the time I couldn’t remember where it was, and I figured after all that fucking it’d be pretty unsexy to have the cameras capture me patting my pockets down like a dumbass.”
Jesse collapsed backward with laughter that I shortly joined him in. I flung myself onto the bed next to him, key in hand so I could unlock the cuffs. It’d been in the right side cargo pocket. “Fuck, okay. That was a good call. That would’ve been on par with pausing to put reading glasses on before fingering me.”
I rubbed over his wrists where the cuffs had been, double-checking I hadn’t cut off his blood supply. “Or pausing to stretch mid-thrust.”
We died all over again, laughing until our stomachs hurt and I had to clutch mine because it legit felt like my guts were trying to burst through my abs.
When the laughter died down, I curled on my side facing Jesse, fingering the tatters of his sweats. “I didn’t know these were your favorites. I’m sorry. I promise I’ll replace them. I don’t care what the brand is or where you got them or how much they cost. I’ll hunt down exactly the same ones and get them for you.”
Jesse’s eyes did a funny wobbly thing, then a soft smile quirked his lips. “That’s really sweet. But you don’t have to. I consider it collateral damage, you know? Or something like that. It was for a good cause. A worthy-as-fuck cause. I enjoyed myself.”
I peered at him closely, watching for more of those minute tells, the subtle ones that lived in small flinches or micro movements of muscle. “You did?” I really hoped he was telling the truth, because I’d enjoyed myself, too. Not just because the sex had been hot as hell, but because there was something about being around Jesse that put me at ease, even in the most ridiculous circumstances.
He nodded, open and earnest. “Hell yeah. It was super hot. You make a great masked villain.”
“It wasn’t too much, or too rough or too, um, mean or anything?”
He chuckled, and fiddled with a strand of my hair. “No. Seriously, it was perfect. I had no idea you were capable of talking like that.”
“Me either.”
He sucked on his lower lip, thinking. “I liked it a lot. Did you?”
“Fuck yeah. It felt weird at first, but once I got into it…” I made a noise that wasn’t quite a growl and also wasn’t a word, yet somehow perfectly encompassed the experience.
“Maybe we could do something along those lines again sometime?” Jesse waggled his brows.
“Sold.”
“Go on. Tell me,”Jesse said.
We’d gotten cleaned up, put away the cameras after making sure we’d captured the entire event, and then it was time to get ready for the party. I still didn’t know what the fuck to wear for a costume, though.
I considered for a moment, then decided that, given everything that had just gone down, the odds were in favor of Jesse not making fun of me. I still felt like a sappy dork, though. “I was thinking about going as Damien or maybe Landon from?—”
“For real? You read the series?” A big grin formed on his face.
I definitely needed to temper his expectations here. “I haven’t read the series.” It was a well-intentioned lie because I’donly read the first couple of books so far after checking them out of the university’s library, and I didn’t want him to know until I finished the series. Also, if I absolutely hated it, I planned to just pretend I hadn’t read them. “But I jumped around your copy for a while and they seemed like cool characters. Then I decided it was, uh, I dunno. Maybe a little out of my wheelhouse.” AKA way too obvious. “So I think I’m just going to default to football player instead, as usual. It’s easy.” And completely devoid of creativity, but whatever. “Plus, probably no one will get it.”
“ButIwould. And I’d love it.” Jesse paused with a frown. “Not that you should do it just for me, or anything, of course. I’m just saying I think it’d be a great costume and I would know who you were supposed to be is all.”
Goddamn, he was adorable. I made fists of my hands to keep myself from placing them on either side of his face and kissing him. There’d been a lot of blurry lines between us lately and I really didn’t want to overstep. I mean, I did. But I didn’t want to make Jesse uncomfortable since we were just supposed to be a business arrangement.
Jesse nudged me. “Do you have everything you’d need, costume-wise?”
“The basics, yeah.”
“Can I see it?”
“I’m missing some of the fine details, like that weird necklace they wear.”
“It’s a pendant, but I get what you mean.” Jesse swatted my thigh and urged me toward my room. “Go on. I’ll show you yours if you show me mine.”
I blinked at him. “I think it’s supposed to be the other way around?”