Sugar

“No school?”

“Everything’s closed.”

He hovered by my hall table, not quite entering the den as I took a seat on the couch.

He cleared his throat, the sound almost unsure and totally incongruent with the greedy lover I met six hours ago. “So, last night…” He really was a Jekyll and Hyde.

“Yeah.” We endured several awkward seconds of silence. I picked at a hangnail and Noah watched me carefully.

“You’re not mad?”

I didn’t know what I was. “I’m not sure.”

“You’re not being bitchy. Is this like the calm before the storm?”

“I don’t know.”

He took a hesitant step closer. “I … I’m sorry if I took it too far.”

“No, you’re not.” Giving him the impression I wanted things PC in the bedroom would be my worst mistake.

He smirked, meeting my eyes and showing zero regret but plenty of satisfaction. “No. I’m not.”

“Good. I prefer to keep things honest where sex is involved. Fewer misunderstandings that way.”

“So you’re okay with what happened? Your feelings matter to me, Avery.”

Why did he have to be a nice guy when it would be so much more convenient if he were a jerk at the moment? It made it impossible to hate the shithead who occupied the other half of his soul.

“I’m okay.” The words didn’t feel like a lie.

He took another step closer. “Did you like it?”

“N—I… Some.”

He smiled and lowered to the coffee table, so we were sitting across from each other. Our knees brushed as he gently took my hand. “Which parts?”

I wasn’t sure. I sort of liked the way he touched me now. I liked when he was nice to me. “I’m not sure.”

I also kind of liked when he wasn’t so nice, which probably made me fucked in the head.

“You can tell me.”

“I honestly don’t know. Last night was weird. Different from what I’m used to. If you were anyone else, I would have ripped your nuts off. But you’re not anyone else. You’re my frienemy neighbor who slow dances with me in the snow to Christmas carols. The guy who cooks me hot cocoa and makes sure I have a backup phone charger available in a blizzard. I want to be mad at you for last night, and I should, but I’m not.”

His head tipped away from my full view, toward the floor as his smile widened. “I think, if we can manage not to kill each other, we can have something great, Avery. I know you like things a certain way, but last night I proved my way wasn’t so bad either.”

I scoffed and rolled my eyes at his arrogance. “Because your way has to be better, right? I mean, it’s yours.”

“I’m just saying we could try some things—”

“Okay. Let’s try it my way. What are your soft and hard limits?”

“Don’t get all dominatrix woman on me.” He smirked. “I mean, if you want to put on a tight leather corset, you might get my attention, but otherwise the bossy stuff doesn’t do it for me.”

“And you know this because you’re so experienced as a bottom?”

“Use normal words, Avery.”

“Bottom is submissive. Top is dominant. These aren’t advanced terms, especially for someone as deep in the rabbit hole of the porn industry as you claim to be.”

His eyes narrowed. “I could be a bottom. But I’d rather be in charge.”

“So would I.”

“But you loved last night.”

“Nobody used that word. I said I didn’t know how I felt about last night, but it was okay. I’m not going to stroke your ego and basically fake orgasmic praise to make you feel good. You got laid last night. You should feel fine.”

He dropped my hand. “I didn’t ask you to stroke my ego. And I know for a fact no orgasms were faked.”

“But you’re fishing for praise.”

He glared at me. “I want to figure you out.”

“Well, where did you put your morning newsletter of Freud’s theories? That will have all the main bullet points of how women are innately masochistic and passive. Being that you have a penis, and therefore a bigger brain, it should be easy enough for you to figure me out.”

“Don’t make me out like some male chauvinist. I’m trying to be open-minded.”

“But that’s what you want, isn’t it? A woman to be your passive little fuck toy and tell you what a big man you are.”

His lips tightened, and I sensed he wanted to call me a bitch. “I just wish I knew why you need so much control.”

“Why do you? Rather than act like there’s something wrong with me, why not do a little research, Noah? There’s a great big world out there on that thing the kids call the Internet. You know, the place where you find all your porn. Widen the search for a change.”

“Avery, I’ve done the search. It’s a black hole of kink. I want to know where it ends for you.”