Nerves bubble in my stomach as I wait for the knock to come. And when it does, I’m paralyzed for a full second before I can force myself to move. I can do this. I want to do this.

I open the door, and my stomach falls through the ground and into the center of the earth. The man standing in front of me is fucking gorgeous. Perfect in every way. Model looks and a smile that could put someone in an early grave. But that’s not why I feel like I’m about to pass out.

It’s because Bryce is standing on my doorstep. Bryce, the man I’ve wanted since before I was legal. Bryce, the man who’s been invading my dreams for years and who I cursed today for driving me to absolute distraction. Bryce.

It registers on his face a second later. “Katti?”

God, I just want to die. I told him on the app that I wanted him to fuck me. Use toys on me. I mean, I didn’t know it was him, but now I’ll never be able to take that back. There’s a reason I moved away from home, and it was to avoid this.

“Bryce,” I say, my voice not at all steady. It’s like a breathy moan and I wish that it wasn’t filled with the longing that I absolutely feel.

He’s staring at me, face plastered with shock. I’ll never be able to unsee that look on his face. The discovery that I like older men. That I, Katti Everly, his best friend’s daughter, has a collection of sex toys that I was prepared to let a stranger use on me.

“I—” he says. “This is not what I expected.”

That voice is just what I remember. Rich and deep like hot chocolate with an accent that makes me swoon. But now he thinks I’m some sort of deviant, and I’ll live forever in embarrassment. I would rather have had our final meeting ever—because I’ll make sure that this is it—been something a lot less mortifying.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “You should go.”

I move the door and he catches it with his hand. “You’re not even going to invite me inside?”

I shake my head. “You said it yourself. This isn’t what you were expecting. You came here to have a night full of carefree sex, not find out that your best friend’s daughter is a deviant and a sex-starved pervert.”

Bryce narrows his eyes, and easily pushes the door open again and steps inside, into my space. He closes the door behind him, and he’s looming over me. I’d forgotten how tall he is. “Is that what you think I think?” he asks, reaching out and putting his hands on my shoulders. “Because that’s not the case in the slightest.”

“You don’t have to say that, Bryce. It’s okay. You can just go.”

He guides me against the wall, pressing me there. Not hard, but firmly enough so I don’t run away and he can look at my face. But I don’t want to. I avoid his eyes, even as he seeks them.

“Do you really think that I would agree to meet up with someone who I thought was a complete pervert? Why would I do that?”

“Sex.”

He chuckles, and I hate the way that sound tugs at my gut, doing things to me that I can’t possibly explain to him. “I don’t usually use Heart First for sex, Katti. But your profile, what you wrote, everything from wanting an older man with an accent to what you put as your kinky interests. It called out to me. I wanted to find out who you were, and I meant all those things I said.”

I see it when it dawns on his face. “You said you were trying to get someone out of your head. Someone older. Someone with an accent.”

He lets the words hang in the air, and I finally meet his eyes. They’re asking me the question that I can’t answer. I won’t answer. Not until he says it.

Finally, after an eternity. “Is it me?”

I nod.

Bryce sighs, hands tightening on my shoulders, and he steps just a little bit closer. “I haven’t seen you in four years, Katti. How come you’re trying to forget me? Why am I on your mind at all?”

I swallow, my body reacting to his closeness, suddenly feeling the very thing that it’s wanted. “This was a mistake,” I say. “You know nothing can happen. My father would disown me and he’d kill you.”

Bryce’s eyes have gone dark, and he’s slowly closed the distance between us so that we’re nearly pressed up against each other. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“You had to know,” I say, shaking my head. “It was obvious. I had a crush on you forever, Bryce. You were all I ever wanted. Long before I should have wanted anything. And for a moment, I thought that you might feel it too. But that’s crazy, and I couldn’t do it to Dad.”

Tags: Penny Wylder Erotic
Source: readsnovelonline.net