Page 67 of Learn Your Lesson

I balked.

Did he… did he really just ask what I think he did?

“Uh…” I stammered, truly concerned I’d misheard him.

“It’s a pretty simple yes or no question.”

“Then why does it feel like a trap?”

“It’s not.”

“You answer first.”

He flattened his lips. “Clearly, you already know my answer if I’m here asking you.”

“Maybe I want to be wooed. That wasn’t exactly a romantic declaration.”

“I don’t do woo and I don’t do romance, either. You want honesty?ThatI can do.”

He leaned over the table then, folding his massive hands together and leveling his gaze with mine. He spoke slowly, intently, with a rasp like every word burned on the way out.

“Yes, I want to fuck you, Chloe.Badly. So much so that I’ve fucked my hand every night since you’ve moved in and thought about you waiting on your knees when I came.”

Holy hell.

Those words were degrading. They were horrendous. They were the kind of filth that would have had my grandmother clutching her pearls and my mother slapping Will right across his handsome face.

But they did something else entirely for me.

My body erupted with chills that I didn’t even try to hide, and I swallowed, somehow holding his gaze even when I felt my entire body flush with heat. I was tempted to play with my hair, so I sat on my hands to keep from doing so.

“Your turn,” he said, and even though he’d just confessed to masturbating to the thought of me, he looked like he’d rather strangle me than get me naked. “Do you want to have sex with me?”

I blinked, my throat dry.

“I… this is just… I’ve never been asked quite so directly,” I stammered.

“I think we both know I’m not one to beat around the bush.”

I swallowed, nodding, and then held my chin as high as I could. “Yes,” I breathed. “I… do.”

“You do what?”

“I want to have sex with you.”

The words were a breathy, secret confession that felt as dirty rolling off my lips as any curse word I’d ever muttered in the presence of my grandmother.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure Will had heard me.

But then I saw it, all the small ways he reacted — the way his Adam’s apple bobbed, his hands gripping each other tighter, his nostrils flaring, eyes heating.

“Here’s the deal,” he said, and he stood, pacing like a businessman about to close on a billion-dollar merger. “Clearly, there is a mutual infatuation between us. I think it’s fair to say we’ve both felt this way for a while now.”

I smirked, folding my arms across my chest and leaning back in my chair.

I’d never seen this man so flustered.

I wasverycontent to sit back and watch the show.