Page 16 of Dearly Unbeloved (Spicy in Seattle #3)

SIERRA

T here’s something in her voice that makes my mouth go dry. This is a terrible idea. Not the worst idea we’ve ever had—I’d say moving in together, drunkenly getting married, and then choosing to stay married take bronze, silver, and gold for bad ideas. This is up there, though.

But I said yes anyway. With little convincing. Because I know, without a doubt, that Rose absolutely will have me saying her name over and over. I don’t know anyone who sticks to their word quite like Rose Cannon.

“Take off the blanket.”

My eyes widen. I’m no stranger to Rose demanding shit, but this is…

different. Her voice is low, melting into my skin and heating me from within.

“N-now? Like this?” I stammer, looking around the room.

Nerves flutter in my chest. She’s so intense, but it doesn’t usually faze me.

I guess there’s something different about it when she’s about to see me naked.

Rose follows my gaze, her lips pinched. “I mean, if you want to clean up in here first, you know I’d never say no. But that might take a while.”

It’s incredible, really, how quickly she can take me from turned on to pissed off. “That’s not what I meant,” I say through gritted teeth. “I’m pretty much naked under here.”

“I’m sorry, did you want to get dressed before we have sex?”

“Can you turn out the lights?”

Rose tilts her head, narrowing her eyes and surveying me. God, I’ve never felt more like prey in my life.

She crosses her arms. “Why?”

I blink, surprised by the question. It’s not like I expected her to listen and do as I asked—though it would’ve been nice. I know her better than that at this point. My lungs feel tight as I suck in a breath. “I prefer keeping the lights off. It means I don’t have to feel self-conscious, you know.”

Rose sighs and shakes her head. “I’d tell you there’s nothing to feel self-conscious about, but I don’t know why I think you’d listen. So I suppose I’ll just have to show you.”

“I—what?” I splutter, but Rose has already turned away.

She looks over my dresser, and I can practically feel her wrinkling her nose at the clutter. Or what she perceives as clutter, anyway. Everything is actually placed intentionally, laid out so I can see all my favorite things.

Rose looks over her shoulder at me. “Lighter.”

It’s a demand, not a question, but I bite down the retort tickling my tongue. My nightstand drawer is no less chaotic than my dresser, but it only takes a couple of seconds to find the lighter and toss it to her. It might be chaos, but it’s my chaos .

She catches it with ease—I bet she played some fancy-ass sport like lacrosse or tennis growing up—and turns her back on me again.

I listen to the click of the lighter and the crackle as she lights one of my many candles, but I stare up at the ceiling, steadying myself.

It’s not too late to call this off—any of it.

All I have to do is say the word, and we can pretend we didn’t agree to sleep together.

It would be easy. Getting out of the rest of it would be a little trickier—I don’t even know if we can annul this thing anymore—but we could figure it out.

I just have to open my mouth and say I’m done.

But I don’t. I force air into my lungs as Rose lights more candles, and, when she flicks the light switch and plunges the room into shadows, I force myself out of my head and back into the moment.

“Better?” Rose asks, and I meet her gaze, curious but not judgmental.

“I guess.”

She returns to the end of the bed and holds a hand out for the blanket. I start to take it off, but hesitate.

“Why are you nervous?” Rose asks.

“You’re not?”

She shakes her head, her lips lifting at the edges. “No. You know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I know you don’t like me. And you know I don’t like you. We have nothing to lose here.”

Well, when you put it like that…

I sit up enough to push the blanket off, and Rose tugs it away. I shouldn’t be surprised that she stops to fold it before placing it on a chair, but I am. The anticipation is painful, waiting for her to look at me. But once the blanket is safely stowed away, she still doesn’t.

Rose takes her time, standing with her back to me as she pulls her college sweatshirt over her head. Her blonde hair tumbles down her bare back as she folds it and drops it on top of the blanket.

I draw my knees up to my chest as I watch her twisted little power play.

The candlelight illuminates freckles on her back I’ve never seen before, dotted around like a constellation.

Without a word, she shucks her slippers off and tucks them under the chair, then shimmies out of her cycling shorts, leaving her in nothing but a black lace thong.

Pink satin. Black lace. What the hell is up with her lingerie collection, and how have I never seen any of these in our laundry room? Probably because she washes, dries, and puts everything away without waiting three to five business days.

I open my mouth to snark about her surprisingly spicy lingerie, but the words die on my tongue when she nonchalantly turns around.

My cheeks burn, but I can’t help but drag my eyes over her, drinking in every inch. I regret asking her to turn the light off, though the candles light her enough for me to take in the lines and details of her body I’ve never been privy to.

Rose’s body is the kind you’d see in a swimsuit magazine—long and lithe, model perfect with curves everywhere society claims is acceptable. Her skin is unmarred other than a surprising belly button piercing and a few scars on her upper thighs.

Even from my spot over here, I can tell her breasts are a perfect handful, with pretty pink nipples the exact shade of her lips. God, I need to get my hands on her.

I raise my eyes to her face and find her watching me, an eyebrow raised and a smirk on her mouth. “Are you done ogling?”

I shrug. “I didn’t expect the piercing.”

“I got it in high school and was too scared to take it out in case it left a scar.”

She kneels on the end of the bed, and the proximity of her makes me a little lightheaded. “Are you going to hide away like that all night?” The words are sarcastic, but she sounds softer than she usually does.

“No,” I reply, gulping down a breath but making no move.

Rose screws up her lips. “Okay. Don’t be alarmed, but I’m going to be nice to you for a second?—”

“Someone call the news.”

“Ignoring that… You know I don’t like you?—”

“Is this your idea of nice?” Sounds about right.

“You know, I was planning on keeping things nice and light tonight, but if you’re going to interrupt everything I say, your ass is going to become well acquainted with the palm of my hand. Are we clear?”

My mouth pops open, and I swear my legs part ever so slightly of their own accord. It’s simultaneously sexy and terrifying how her expression doesn’t change, how she says something so threateningly filthy without batting an eye.

“Crystal clear,” I answer, but my voice sounds a million miles away to my own ears.

“Great. As I was saying, I may not like your personality, but your body? Fuck, Sierra. That little glimpse I got when we woke up in Vegas has been haunting me. You’re infuriating, but you’re beautiful. I get the feeling people haven’t always made you feel that way. Am I right?”

I hesitate before finally nodding. I half expect pity, but fire flashes in Rose’s hazel eyes and she huffs, her nostrils flaring like a pissed off bull.

When I lived in Canada, we lived near a lot of other Asian-Canadian families. It was a diverse neighborhood, and I never felt out of place. Until we moved back to Washington, and I realized I didn’t fit the average American stereotype of an Asian woman.

My first week at my new school, I overheard a group of girls in my grade whispering about me: “I thought all Japanese girls were skinny,” one of them said, and the rest just laughed. Teenage girls aren’t known for their kindness.

I was sixteen, so it wasn’t the first time someone had made a shitty comment about my appearance or my race. And god knows it wasn’t the last. But it was the first time it had happened without the community I was used to having around me, and sixteen is a formative age.

I’m thirty years old now, and I’ve had a long time to come to terms with my body looking like it does.

I don’t hate it, not like I did when I was a teenager, but I don’t love it either.

It’s just skin and bone, designed to hold all the things that make me me in place.

If anyone asked me, I’d swear I was completely neutral about the curve of my stomach, the wobble of my thighs, the way my breasts droop, and the stretch marks painted across my skin.

And sometimes I am neutral. But sometimes I remember hiding in the school bathroom and fighting back tears.

Sometimes, I look at bodies like Rose’s and wonder what if?

How would the world look at me if I was a size four instead of a size fourteen?

How would I look if I fit the stereotype?

“Sierra,” Rose says, her expression gentler. “When we first moved in together, you used to have this lime green tank top. Do you remember?”

My brows draw together. “Yeah.” I tossed it after I accidentally spilled paint on it at one of Jazz and Liam’s paint and sip nights.

“It rode up whenever you stretched, and I remember sitting on the couch watching you reach into the cabinet for a wineglass. It slipped up and showed off your midriff. It was my first time seeing that part of you, and do you know what I thought when I saw your stretch marks?” I shake my head, and Rose continues, “I wanted to trace them with my tongue. I’ve never once looked at your body and thought anything but gorgeous.

Your body is beautiful. You are beautiful. Okay?”

She emphasizes every word, her eyes shining with conviction. It’s a little scary, honestly, but somehow reassuring at the same time. I nod, quickly.

“I want to hear you say it. Tell me you’re beautiful, Sierra.”

Jesus Christ. This is a whole new side of Rose, one I find it hard to argue with. I really can’t let her figure out how easy it would be for her to win this stupid battle of wills we’ve been fighting for the past year, if only she spoke like this on a regular basis.

“I…”

“Say it.”

“I’m beautiful,” I whisper. The words sound foreign and weak from my tongue, and Rose raises a brow that clearly says, “not good enough.” I clear my throat. “I’m beautiful.” Better. I sound stronger, like I might actually believe myself.

A sensual smile lights Rose’s face. “Yes, you are. Now here’s how this is going to go.” She crawls closer. “If at any point you want to stop, say ‘red’ and we stop. No questions asked. If you need a breather or to slow down, ‘yellow.’”

“And ‘green’ if I like it?”

Rose licks her lips. I follow the motion of her tongue and wish it was on me instead. “I’ll know if you like it.”

She places a cool hand on my knee, and I jump, my heart racing. She looks over my face, waiting for me to nod before she holds my other knee. Her palms are smooth against my skin as she drags them along my thighs.

“Drop your arms,” she commands, and my body listens before my brain catches up. I let my arms fall, clenching the sheets in my fists.

Rose lets loose a ragged breath, but her gaze doesn’t stray from my face. She’s the pinnacle of control as she parts my knees and kneels between them.

Slowly, like time means nothing, she lowers her gaze. I swear her hands tighten on my thighs, her pupils swallowing her golden-hazel irises.

“Fuck,” she whispers, blinking like she’s as surprised as I am by the word slipping from her lips.

She leans forward, dragging a single finger over my skin, skimming my stomach. “What does it mean?” she asks as she traces the black snake and rose tattoo on my sternum.

“Nothing. I just thought it was pretty,” I lie, because I’m already vulnerable and she doesn’t care, not really. This is all foreplay, getting me comfortable and supplicant beneath her touch.

“Of course you did. It is pretty. I’ll give you that,” she replies with a short, humorless laugh.

For the first time, I realize she’s as affected by this as I am. She wants me, and she hates it.

The thought emboldens me, and I loosen my grip on the sheets.

This version of Rose might be sensual, intense, and, frankly, intimidating, but she’s still the stuck-up, bossy Rose who thinks she’s better than everyone else.

I can want to come apart at the seams under her touch and hate her guts at the same time.

She can say pretty things and get me to do as I’m told while the lights are off and still be completely insufferable the rest of the time. She’s just Rose.

It’s like she watches everything click into place behind my eyes, and the last of her hesitation melts away as I breathe out the tension.

“We’ll have a proper conversation at some point about boundaries and shit, but for now... How are you with praise? ”

“Giving or receiving?” I ask, though I know she means receiving. And she knows I know it, which is why she doesn’t answer, just quirks a perfect blonde brow. “I like praise.”

“Pain?”

“Nothing crazy, but I like a little.”

“Do you like being talked through it, or quiet?”

“Um…” I trail off, unsure how to answer. I’m not big on talking, usually, but I like how Rose has talked to me tonight. “I’m not sure, actually. Can we try talking and see how it goes?”

“We can do that.”

“And you? What do you like?”

Rose continues the ascent of her finger, tipping my chin up. “We can talk about me tomorrow.”

“But—” I’m cut off when Rose pushes her fingers and fists them in my hair, tugging my head back. It isn’t painful, but it’s on the edge. I gasp, groaning as she pushes me back against the pillows and threads my right hand with hers.

“Don’t answer back,” she chastises, and I’m so fucked. I think I could actually get off from her scolding me alone. This is such a problem. “You’re going to do as you’re told for me, aren’t you?” I nod, but she tuts. “Use your words.”

Christ, she’s so condescending. And I really, really like it. I’m fucking soaked.

“I’m going to do as I’m told,” I whimper as her grip on my hair tightens.

“For…”

I grit my teeth. “For you. I’m going to do as I’m told for you. ”

A wicked smile falls across Rose’s lips and she bends her head, her mouth hovering an inch from mine. “See? You can be a good girl when you want to be. And good girls get rewarded, Sierra.”