Right?
“What about you?” she asks, shyly. “What have you done?”
“Just assume I’ve done everything,” I answer.
“Everything?”
“Well, okay, there’s a few categories on Pornhub that I haven’t dabbled in, but for the most part, everything.”
“And girlfriends?”
“I’ve never had a serious girlfriend, and I haven’t even casually dated anyone since college.”
“Why not?” Zenny asks. “Isn’t that normal? To date?”
I shrug. “Don’t have the time, mostly. And well, I’m a little bossy, as you may have noticed. Women like it in bed, but I have trouble turning it off in real life.”
“Bossy how?”
I think for a moment. Then make a decision. “You really want to know?”
I’m not imagining the widening of her pupils as she says, “Yes.”
“If we get through talking over everything, I’ll show you.”
“Like a reward?”
“Yes, darling. Like a reward.”
She tries to hide a smile when I call her darling, and I decide right then and there that I’m going to call her every endearment in the book if it makes her so fetchingly happy.
“Back to the talk,” I say, and there’s a new quickness in my voice because fuck I’m hard. I want to get through this and get to dinner, and then, you know.
Rewards.
“Boundaries,” I say. “I need to know yours.”
This kind of straightforward talk seems to put her back in her comfort zone, and her voice settles back into its usual, clear tones as she rattles off a list of things she’s clearly given thought to. “No spit, blood, or third parties. If we do anything kinky, we have to discuss it first and we both get safe words. And obviously, I can’t risk pregnancy or disease. I’ve been taking birth control to help control migraines for a few years, but I still want to use condoms.”
“Of course.”
She looks surprised that I don’t argue more about the last thing.
“I always use condoms,” I tell her. “You’ve got nothing to worry about there. And everything else we can easily manage.”
“Okay, good,” she says. “And this can’t cut into my studies or my volunteering, so we might have to be creative about scheduling.”
“I can handle that.”
She squeezes my hands. “What are your boundaries?”
I’m glad she asked because I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours trying to find the right limits to this arrangement—any ethical loophole, any technicality that I could hold onto and think to myself, I’m not a bad man, I’m doing this to help her, here’s how I’m keeping her safe while giving us a taste of what we both want.
“I have one boundary and one caveat,” I tell her. “The caveat is that whatever happens with the Keegan property is separate from this. What happens in bed has no impact on me trying to find a new shelter—or on you slandering me to the press, if you wish to continue to do so.”
That makes her eyes sparkle. “Deal.”
“And the boundary—you don’t make me come.”
Record scratch.
Zenny sits up, letting go of my hands to cross her arms across her chest. “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”
“I want to do this with you…for you…but I don’t want to take advantage and I don’t want to use you. I don’t want there to be any doubt that I’m doing this all for you.”
“So you’re not planning on coming when we’re together at all?”
To be honest, I haven’t really thought that far ahead. I’d only gotten so far as to decide I couldn’t actually, in good conscience, erupt inside a nun’s mouth. “I don’t know. I—”
“Because I don’t accept that,” Zenny interrupts. “You said everything was on the menu, and that’s a part of everything that I refuse to compromise on.” She pauses, and then forges ahead. “I need you to come too. If you don’t, I don’t know, but it makes me feel like I’d be missing something important.”
“It’s not that special, sweetheart. It’s cum.”
She shakes her head, not having it. “It’s special to me. I only get a month of this, and I won’t miss any part of it.”
I rub at my jaw, trying to bring my brain around to find some way to convince her, but my God, all I can think about is how much she wants to see me spill.
“How about,” Zenny says, “you come when we’re together, but I won’t be the one to finish you off? It won’t be my hands or my mouth or—you know.”
“Your pussy?”
“My pussy,” Zenny echoes and we’re staring hard at each other now, thinking of the same thing. Thinking of me coming deep inside her, giving her everything.
“Deal,” I say hoarsely.
She leans down and kisses me—gently at first—then eagerly as I kiss her back, and she scoots forward on my lap so she can rub herself against my angry, needy cock. “Are we done with the talking yet?” she asks against my lips. “Please say yes.”
I smile at her eagerness and shake my head, giving her a final, soft kiss before I say, “One last thing.”
She groans.
But it can’t be ignored and it can’t wait. I take her hands in my mine again and brush my lips across her knuckles. “Zenny, I don’t want to move forward without…I mean, I want to be aware that there’s…”
Dammit. I can’t find the right words. This is just as awkward and intimate as talking about sex, and I’m fumbling around for ways for this to come out right and coming up short.
I start again, peering up at her. “You’re young. You’re so young. Elijah…he asked me to protect you, and I’m pretty sure this is the exact opposite. I’ve never done this before—dating or fucking someone I care about or fucking someone I’m supposed to take care of, and I’m terrified of hurting you. Of getting this wrong.”
Those copper eyes search my own, shimmering and serious and sharp. And then she nods. “Okay,” she says simply.
“Really?” I ask, feeling clumsy and guilty for reasons I don’t entirely understand. “I want you to know that you always have the power between us, Zenny. To say stop or to say go. To tell me what you need from me. To tell me I’m an asshole.”
That last earns me a little smile. “I’ll never be afraid to tell you that,” she says. “And I trust you, Sean. That doesn’t change reality, but I’m willing to navigate it with you.”
The weight of her undeserved trust sits heavy on me, and I shift underneath her, still worried, still guilty.
“And it’s only for a month, remember?” she adds. “It’s not like we have to figure out how to raise children together.”
“Right,” I say, except now I’m suddenly wondering what our children would look like, and I’ve never wanted children, never ever, no sir. But damn. Zenny and I would make cute babies. And I can picture her belly swollen and tight with my child, picture her sitting in a glider in some quiet room, nursing our baby while I sat by her feet and stared up at her adoringly.
Happiness.
That’s the feeling unfurling in my chest right now, fragile and easily blown apart, and the sensation of it is so strange that I’m rendered still, staring at Zenny as if she’s the only thing in the world.
She misinterprets my stillness and laughs. “I was only joking about the children, Sean, don’t panic.”
“I—”
“In fact,” she continues, oblivious to my fantasy and the unfamiliar excitement blooming inside me, “I’m surprised you didn’t give me some speech about how I can’t fall in love with you while we do this.”
“I don’t think that will be a problem for you,” I murmur, kissing her knuckles again so that she can’t see my face. I hadn’t forgotten about the possibility of emotional entanglement—in fact, almost every other book in the Wakefield Saga had a speech to that effect in there somewhere whenever the characters first get together. I’ll pretend to court you for a season, but we mustn’t fall in lov
e, or since I’m a widow, I can teach you how to please a future wife in bed, but of course it will end between us the moment you get engaged. That sort of thing.
But I don’t need it with Zenny. The way she talks, the way she lives her life—I’m never going to be able to compete with her God for love. She’ll fuck me, use me to whatever purpose she needs, and then go back to her church with a deeper faith than ever. I don’t doubt that for a second.
It’s weird though, how quickly that thought wilts my happiness.
“Is that smoke?” Zenny asks, and I turn with some alarm to see a steady white plume coming from my oven.
“Ahhhh shit shit shit.” Zenny slides gracefully onto the sofa and I leap to rescue the pot pie, which I already know Mary Berry would declare “overdone” and our awkward discussion comes to a sudden, smoking stop.
Chapter Twelve
The pot pie is only barely burnt, and I make sure to sprinkle lots of the expensive cheese over the worst parts, and then it’s fine. I dish it out, crack open the beers, and soon Zenny and I are sitting at the small table by the window, looking out over the darkening city.
“It’s strange,” Zenny says, after blowing on a forkful of pie to cool it off. “Even though it was uncomfortable to talk like that, I feel really good right now. Like I’ve just exercised or something.”
I was very busy staring at the little creases in her lips as she put them together to blow, and it takes me a minute to answer. “I agree. I’m glad it didn’t scare you off.”
“I’m not easily scared,” Zenny says as she takes a bite, and I watch the slow slide of the fork’s tines between her lips, the flutter of her eyelashes as she savors the food.
“No, I don’t think you are,” I murmur, knowing distantly that I should stop watching her so intently, but damn, the girl’s fucking gorgeous. I think I could happily sit and watch her balance a checkbook or browse through Consumer Reports, she’s that arresting to watch.
And she’s right. The air between us feels good. Clear and charged with all the right charges.
“This bossiness,” she says.
“Yes.”
She sets down her fork and studies me, a daring glint in her gaze. “So far I’m not all that impressed by it.”
I study her back. “Is that a challenge?”
“Maybe.”
“I haven’t started yet.” I pause. “It’s not one of my finer traits, Zenny. But it’s hard for me to turn it off for people I—” I stop because a very incautious word almost slipped out, and I’m scared at how not scared I am to say it in front of her.
“—people I care about,” I say instead.
“People you care about.”
“My brothers. My mother,” I say. “My sister, when she was alive…much good that it did her,” I add with some old, tired bitterness.
“What do you mean?” Zenny asks, and she asks it without playing into my obvious self-pity. She asks like she’d ask about the weather or about who tailors my suits.
“I mean that I was over-protective and stubbornly in her business all the time. School, boyfriends, what parties she was going to and if her cell phone was fully charged and if she remembered the mugging classes I begged her to take before she came to KU. And the whole time she’d been carrying this wound, this shame, years and years of what this man had done to her, and I had no idea. I had no idea that I’d failed to protect her until it was too late.”
“So you are bossy to take care of the people you keep close,” Zenny says, “but there was a time once when—in your eyes—you failed. And you haven’t let anyone new into that circle since.”
“I—” I break off because…well, she’s not wrong, actually. The people in my life—my parents, my brothers, Elijah—they were already there before Lizzy. I suppose I haven’t let myself get close to anyone new since she killed herself because getting close would mean feeling responsible for them and taking care of them.
And Lizzy’s suicide proved how inept I really was at keeping the people around me safe.
“I don’t know how you manage to do this,” I say, taking a quick swig of beer to hide my discomfort. “Make me talk about all kinds of depressing shit.”
Zenny reaches across the table to touch my hand. “Sean.”
“Yes?”
“It’s only a month between us,” she says quietly, “and I’m not your sister.”
I think of Tyler’s words yesterday, of his warning.
“I know that,” I tell her.
“Good. Because I want this month to feel real. That’s the whole point, for me to feel everything I’ll leave behind, not just the sex, but the companionship and friendship too. We are friends, right?”
“Yes, Zenny,” I say, watching how the city lights sparkle in her eyes. “We’re friends.”
She beams. “Good. Then that means it should be easy for you to be bossy. We’re friends and you’re going to fuck me, and that’s basically like being my boyfriend.”
I haven’t thought of it like that, and the surge of fierce pleasure at the thought of Zenny being my girlfriend, being mine, is impossible to ignore.
“That’s how I want us to be until this is over,” Zenny goes on, ignorant of the stormy happiness thundering through my veins. “I want to feel what a woman of yours would really feel.”
“I’ve never had a woman I called my own,” I say softly. “You’re the first.”
“Really?” She tries to hide her smile at that.
“A lot of things are new with you, Zenny. Even for me.” And I mean it. I may have done almost everything there is to do in bed, but I’ve never done those things with a woman I really cared about. A woman I could pretend was mine.
“Let’s start right now,” Zenny says, straightening up and pushing her plate back. “Say I’m your girlfriend. How would you act?”
I straighten up too. “First of all, you need to know that I’ll stop with the bossiness at any moment. Just say the word.”
“Is the word ‘asshole’?”
I grin. “Yes.”
“I can do that.” She wiggles a little in her seat, like a cat waiting for a string to move across the floor. “Seriously, Sean. I’m starting to think you were bluffing.”
“I don’t bluff, sweetheart. It’s why I’m so good at business.” I take a breath, because this is new to me, letting my natural inclination to control spill into a relationship that’s not familial. But it feels good, it feels nice, and I’ve been fighting the urge to take care of Zenny in all sorts of ways since the gala—allowing that urge out to play feels delicious.
And of course with Zenny, it takes a very different shape than it usually does with my family, the lust and affection and protectiveness twining and twisting into something new. Something I’ve never felt before.
“To start, I want you to finish what’s on your plate.”
Zenny’s eyebrows furrow, and I can tell she wasn’t expecting me to say something so ordinary.
“Eat your dinner, Zenny. I won’t tell you again.”
Eyes narrowing, Zenny picks up her fork and starts to eat.
“You want to call me an asshole yet?”
She swallows a bite. “Not yet.”
I smile. “Good. Take off your shirt.”
Her fork clatters to the plate. “What?”
“You heard me,” I say silkily. “I want to see you while you eat. I want to know the color of your bra, I want to see the shape of your little nipples as they pucker up, all cold and needing to be sucked warm again.”
She swallows again, and this time it has nothing to do with food. “Jesus,” she whispers, and I can’t tell if it’s a swear or if it’s a prayer. It doesn’t really matter either way; she’s tugging her shirt off as fast as she can, tossing it behind her.
I rumble in approval, leaning forward to get a better view. She’s wearing a pale lavender bra, a sweet color against her warm brown skin, and I can see the dark circles of her nipples under the thin fabric. I can see them ha
rdening, pulling up tight.
I can also see the faint shadows of her ribs laddering down her sides and a faded mandala-like doodle spiraling out from her hip.
A college student who sometimes forgets to eat.
A college student bored in bed while she studies and draws idly on her own skin.
In classic Zenny fashion, she is a mix of fearlessness and uncertainty, squaring her shoulders and hiding nothing from my hungry gaze while she bites nervously at her lower lip.
“Perfect,” I rasp, and I see how my praise affects her. Good. I plan on praising her lots over the coming month. “Now finish eating while I look at you.”
“I—what?”
“Finish eating. I know you went to the shelter after your classes today, and I’m going to guess that you haven’t put anything in your stomach since maybe some coffee you had this morning.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. “Maybe.”
“And how often is that the case? That you’re doing so much between school and the shelter that you miss your meals?”
One of her hands comes up to rub at her shoulder as she looks away. “Often,” she admits.
“That ends tonight,” I say sternly. “Eat.”
There’s a moment when I think it’s coming, the inevitable asshole, the moment she tells me to stop. She doesn’t need some white guy playing Daddy with her, she definitely doesn’t need someone treating her like she’s not capable of caring for herself. But Carolyn Bell was a social worker until her cancer diagnosis, one Bell brother was a priest, another Bell brother burns a candle at both ends like his wick will never run out. I’ve seen what happens to busy people, and I know it’s much, much easier to justify losing a night’s worth of sleep for the cause than it is to justify taking ten minutes to make a sandwich. The most selfless people, the most driven people, they need permission to take care of themselves, they need someone who will put them first, because they won’t do it for themselves.
The word asshole never leaves her lips. Her eyes flash with irritation, then they shimmer into some internal struggle that leaves her lower lip trapped between her teeth and her hand hovering over her fork.
Sinner (Priest Book 3) Page 12
