S.E.C.R.E.T. Revealed (Secret 3)

My hands were still pressed on the mirror. His fingers reached around my face and under my chin. He glided them across my lips and slid one into my mouth; I closed my lips firmly around it, tasting soap. I watched myself sucking his finger. I could feel him stiffen even more behind me. His breathing sped up. Matilda once told me that what a man tells you about himself is true. If he says he’s a shallow jerk, that’s usually true. If he says he’s not good at relationships or has trouble committing, ignore this information to your peril.

“I meant it when I said it. At the time.”

His finger was still in my mouth, his tongue traveling to my ear. My knees went weak.

“Then you went back to Will first chance you got,” he whispered. “I learned my lesson.”

He removed his finger from my mouth with a tiny pop. “I told you I was sorry about that, the way I treated you, I—” I thought I detected a hint of anger in his voice.

“I’m not looking for an apology. But it made me realize that I am suited to this. A

nd to fantasies. Not necessarily to real love. Or real commitment. I worry that the opposite might be true of you.”

He stepped back and whipped off his T-shirt. This man was elbow-deep in icing and butter all day. How was it possible that his body was so sculpted?

“How so?”

“You want love.”

“Doesn’t everybody?”

He turned me around to face him.

“No, everybody does not. Some of us just want to fuck.”

He gave me a little push that sent me backwards onto his bed. He was no longer smiling. The face of the sweet, supportive friend who had driven me home from Latrobe’s was replaced by that of an intense young man, his tattoos lending him a menacing patina, one that I found a little scary and incredibly sexy. I inched backwards on the duvet, centering my body on the bed, as he stripped the rest of his clothes off. He was magnificent naked, his cock erect and insistent. He stood there, casually stroking himself as his eyes took me in.

“Open your legs, Cassie,” he instructed, leaning over to his nightstand to remove a condom.

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure I liked the tone in his voice.

“Do it,” he added, sounding hoarse.

“Ask nicely,” I replied, my knees clenched.

He slid the condom on, ignoring me, then climbed onto the bed and kneeled before me, placing his hands on my knees.

“Do you want me to make you? We can play like that too, Cassie. Just say the word.”

This was making me wet and freaking me out. Did I want that? Did I want him to make me?

“Does this turn you on?” I whispered. “Ordering me around like this?”

“Sometimes.”

“I thought men in S.E.C.R.E.T. needed clear signals.”

“I’m not your fantasy man anymore, Cassie. I’m just a man, who wants to fuck you.”

He tugged my knees apart and collapsed over me, his hands on either side. His cock graced the nook between my thigh and pelvis, lying heavy against my skin. The dark bedroom cast shadows across his cheeks and chin. He was breathing heavily, his eyes traveling over my body. I reached up and moved the tips of my fingers across the light hair on his chest, his sternum, the back of my finger tracing up his neck, his chin, across his cheekbones. For some reason I wanted gentleness to contrast with his sudden aggression, but he took my wandering hand and placed it over my head the way you’d move a lever back into its place. There was a moment where I asked myself, Should I let him fuck me like this? Should I let him restrain me and use me? Should I use him? I said yes in my head, while using my knee to press him away from me in a complicated no.

“Too rough for you?” he asked, sounding almost … triumphant.

A surge of something (indignation?) rushed through me. “I actually don’t mind rough sometimes, Jesse.” I remembered Will’s spanking, the fun we’d had pushing each other’s buttons and limits. “It’s that you’re angry. That part I don’t like.”

He blinked a couple of times as though coming to consciousness. Then he rolled off me and collapsed on his back, an arm slung over his eyes.

“Sorry, Cass. I’ll take you home,” he muttered. “I gotta be somewhere anyway.”