Looking Inside

She gave him a sharp glance. “Someone named Trey really doesn’t have the high ground for making fun of names.”

He just smiled and waited expectantly.

“Well, anyway, he’s her boss. She’s his secretary and . . .” Her cheeks flushed and she gave him a repressive glance. “Don’t look so smug. I know it’s cliché-sounding, but it’s actually pretty good. Better than I thought it’d be. Anyway, they enter into a dominant-submissive relationship.”

“Relationship?” he prodded doubtfully.

“Yes, relationship. There’s some really sweet give and take between Xander and Katya, at times.”

“Sexually?”

“Yes, and emotionally. Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

“I don’t,” he defended. “I’m just prodding you, because you’re not giving me much to go on. You were turned on. Reading it, I mean.”

She blinked at his abrupt turn of topic.

“Well, you were, weren’t you? What was happening in the book? When you were getting turned on, there at the coffee shop?”

At first she looked annoyed. Then, ever so slowly, a grin slid across her lips. His cock popped up against the sheet. He couldn’t decide what was sexier about her face, her big, expressive eyes or her sometimes sweet, sometimes X-rated mouth.

“Why don’t you just read the book and find out? I have a feeling you’d like it.”

He straightened against the pillows and leaned toward her. “What’s that supposed to mean? Eleanor?” he prodded suspiciously when she didn’t reply.

“Just read it and see,” she told him, lifting her chin. And despite her play at haughtiness, she gave him a sideways, curious glance. “What about you? Do you like Pride and Prejudice?”

He shrugged and turned to retrieve his glass of water, a little disappointed she wouldn’t give him some dirty details from Born to Submit. “I don’t know,” he replied, taking a sip of water. “It was kind of hard to concentrate on it, with you there. But I don’t think so.”

Her mouth dropped open. “You don’t like Pride and Prejudice?” she asked, clearly scandalized.

There it is. The feminine outrage. He groaned and set down his glass. He turned in the bed and reached for her, hauling her up against him, their naked skin sliding together. It felt good. She gasped and wiggled against him, surprised by his abrupt action. He liked the way that felt too. A lot. He put a hand on her hip, keeping her in place. When she stilled, he slid his opened hand along the warm, silky curve of her hip to her waist. Sure, it was a dirty way to defray a disagreement, but it seemed to work. Her eyes went enormous in her flushed face.

r />

“Don’t lecture me about Pride and Prejudice. If you want me to tell you that it’s deep and romantic, I will.”

She blinked, and he had the impression that for a moment, she’d forgotten what they were talking about. Then he felt her touch him on the back of his hip, the tentative caress striking him as shockingly erotic. Pleasure snaked down his spine to his groin. His cock stiffened and brushed against her satiny, taut belly.

“But you don’t really think it is? Any good, I mean?” she asked weakly.

“Good? Sure, I mean it’s well-written. I don’t get why you women think it’s so romantic, though. Darcy’s a jerk.”

“He isn’t a jerk,” she exclaimed. He gave her a “seriously?” glance. “Well, maybe at first he is. You just haven’t read far enough. That’s the whole premise of the book. They misjudge each other upon their first meetings, and both of them have to work through their pride to admit it. ‘I could almost forgive his vanity had he not wounded mine.’”

He glided his hand to her back and pulled her closer against him, his cock pressed along her stomach, his balls resting at the top of her moist mound. “Are you quoting Pride and Prejudice?” he asked, peering down at her, incredulous. Pleased, for some reason. She’d sounded sort of prim saying it. It turned him on, the way she came off all girls-gone-wild one second and a proper Sunday-school-teacher type the next.

“What if I am?”

“You just said you read erotica exclusively,” he reminded her drolly.

“Well, I might have exaggerated a little,” she mumbled, her gaze darting around the room.

“Yeah. You do that sometimes, don’t you?” he said without any real heat. She made him want to crack up. She also made him hornier than a stag in heat. “Do it more,” he growled, leaning down to kiss her nose and then her lips. They were cool from the water, but he sensed her heat just beneath the surface. “It’s better than dirty talk.”

“You shouldn’t make fun of Pride and Prejudice,” she scolded him, but her tiny smile as he plucked at her lips only encouraged him.

“It’s not my bible.”