Page 96 of Learn Your Lesson

Even if that meant fending off the fans who spotted him.

“This one, this one!” Ava said, sliding into a teacup.

She scooted all the way to the back of the little bench surrounding the small round table center, and I took her left side while Will took the right.

“So the cups just spin on their own?” Ava asked when the ride attendant came by to shut the door to our teacup.

I was still chuckling at Will trying to get comfortable with how long his legs were. His knees were practically up to his chin as he grunted and forced them into the tiny space between the seats and the table in the middle.

“Yep,” he grated, and he gave me a warning look not to say otherwise.

I smiled mischievously. “Actually—”

“Chloe,” Will threatened.

It sent a shiver through me, and I found myself wondering if he’d find a fun way to punish me the next time we were alone.

I couldn’t even find it in me to be ashamed for those dirty thoughts — not since our firstlessonin the kitchenlast week. I felt that tantalizing burn of the Popsicle on my skin long after it had melted and we had cleaned up.

The entire thing was cemented in my mind, a delicious memory that replayed time and time again.

I still couldn’t get over it, how it felt to have his hands on me, to have hismouthon me. And how he’d managed to make me enjoy going down on him when I’d always thought that sounded like the worst thing in the world was beyond me.

I hadn’t just enjoyed it — I’dlovedit. The way he looked at me, the sounds he made because of what I did to him, his hands gripping my hair and my name on his lips when he came undone… it was the most beautiful haunting.

The only disappointment I felt was when I thought about the shower after, when I wished for Will to tell me something he already told me he never would.

Sex was different with him — but that was all it was. Just sex.

As much as I was happy to agree to that, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t long to know him better, to curl up next to him after what we’d done and fall asleep in his arms, to wake up in his bed and see his crooked smile that wasn’t ever really a smile.

I tried to head the warnings and advice of the experts onReddit, the ones who reminded me time and time again to lock up my feelings after we fooled around.Don’t ask questions and don’t stick around, they said.Don’t open up, and don’t mistake the way he touches you for anything more than lust.

But they weren’t there.

They didn’t see his heavy eyes drinking me in, or feel how his touch turned tender the moment we both foundour release. They didn’t witness how those filthy words turned to gentle hands washing me in the shower, didn’t hear the way his voice trembled a bit as he asked if I was okay afterward.

It was all so confusing, I couldn’t even pretend I wasn’t in way over my head.

So, I chose to ignore it all and just live in whatever moment was right in front of me.

Presently, that was the opportunity to teach Will’s daughter how to get the most out of the teacup ride — and watch her father squirm in the process.

“See this table?” I said, ignoring Will’s groan of frustration as I showed Ava what to do. “Once we get going, this table will control how much and how fast we spin. We can go and go and go in one direction and then switch it to the other — like this.”

I demonstrated with my hands, showing how to spin one direction and then the other.

Ava bounced in her seat, the pigtails I’d wrangled her hair into that morning honestly too cute to handle in that moment. I knew now from the many photos of Jenny that Will had scrounged up that Ava had her mother’s eyes. They were bright green and full of curiosity.

“You ready?” I asked her as the ride began.

“Ready!”

“We really don’t have to—ergh!”

Will’s rebuttal was cut short by the first spin, and his hands flew to the table Ava and I were turning as fast as our little hands would let us.

The ride started slow at first, and then it picked up speed, our teacup rotating us so quickly, the world blurred. Ava fought against the force of gravity to hold onto the table, spinning and giggling as her little face turned red.