Page 31 of Duke
“You’re too damn pretty for your own good. More accurately, you’re too damn pretty formygood.” She just stood there and let me dress her, which was a little worrying, but she was still talking, so that was good. “I look at you, and my brain goes dumb. You touch me, get near me, and I just…go loony.”
I helped her slide her arms into the sleeves of her blouse, and then made quick work of buttoning it. I found her shoes where she’d kicked them off at some point, though I had no memory of when she’d done that.
“So, think about me,” I said, finding my shorts and putting them on, then sliding the belt through the loops. “Think about how it felt when I was inside you.”
Her eyes fixed on mine. “That’s a bad idea.”
The air between us went thick and tense. I held her gaze, and in those blue eyes I saw a lot of the same things I saw inside myself—mainly uncertainty regarding what the hell to do about these weirdly intense emotions we seemed to share.
“You ever like something so much it scared you?” she asked.
“I do now.”
“That’s why I shouldn’t think about us like that,” she responded.
“That’s why youshouldthink about it.” I caught her hips in my hands, pulled her close. “Because sweetheart, that’s happening. You and me, bare, nothing between us.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because—because it’s a terrible idea.”
“It’s a fantastic idea.”
“Which is why it’s stupid,” she breathed. “So good it’s bad, and I don’t know how to do that.”
“Temple—”
“Plus,” she said, babbling right over me, “it breaks every single one of my rules.”
“Temple—”
“And my rules keep me safe. They keep all you asshole men in your place. My rules make sense for me.” Her eyes went down, to where my shorts were still open, unzipped, held up cock in one of my hands. “Doesn’t matter how beautiful your dick is, or how perfect it feels, that can’t happen. It’ll break all my rules.”
“You’re gonna have to explain these rules to me, Princess,” I said. “Because I don’t get ‘em. But right now, we gotta go, okay? Those shots will have drawn attention, and we don’t need that. So you’re gonna hang out in here for a hot second while I get rid of our friend out there, and then we’re gonna book it out of here. Okay? Just…stay here.”
She nodded, and I cupped her nape, pulled her close, then grabbed a handful of her hair and tipped her head back. Our lips were millimeters apart. Her breath was warm and sweet and smelled like my cum, which was hotter than it should have been, for some reason. Temple stopped breathing as I lowered my lips to hers, and honestly, I don’t think I was breathing either. Usually a kiss doesn’t mean shit to me, it’s just part of fucking. Chicks dig a hot kiss, it turns ‘em on, gets ‘em ready, sort of puts ‘em in the mood, know what I mean? But for me, normally, a kiss wasn’t anything to get all excited about.
Temple Kennedy, as she had in literally everything else so far, proved that to be a lie. Her lips on mine…fuck. I was gone, man. My heart started pounding like I’d just humped five miles uphill in full gear at a run. My hand shook on the back of her neck. The wet warmth of her mouth, the way she leaned up into the kiss, melting into me, melting into the kiss…
Goddamn it.
God fucking damn it.
Tearing myself out of that kiss was like ripping duct tape off my skin. I staggered backward, jaw clenched hard, a frown tightening my face, chest heaving.
“You’re fucking dangerous, Temple.”
I left the room as fast as I could, because if I didn’t I’d kiss her again, and we didn’t have time for that shit, and also because I didn’t know how to handle that shit.
I took a second to zip, button, buckle, and tuck the front of my shirt behind the buckle of my belt, and then leaned back against the closed door, wiping my face with both hands. I wasn’t sure what was coming over me when I was around Temple, but it was seriously fucking with my mojo. I had to get my shit together. I had way too much to worry about to be getting caught up in some rich bitch’s web of complications. Getting my dick wet wasn’t worth it, no matter how perfect she was.
Yeah, I didn’t believe myself either, but I had to try, right?
I tugged my hair free of the ponytail holder, shook it out, scrubbed my fingers through it a few times, and then tied it back once more, this time putting it up in a topknot. Harris called it a man-bun, but those fucking things were stupid. Only girly little millennial hipster twinks wore man-buns, if you asked me. A topknot was different; if samurai wore topknots, then I could wear a topknot. Those dudes were badasses. Not always the honorable, upright, holy warriors mythology tends to make them out to be, but they were certainly badasses.
Hair out of the way, shorts fixed, cock under control—and feeling drained, let me tell you—breathing normal, hands steady, heart no longer hammering…yeah. I was good to go.