“You’re horny in the morning?” I bite my lip as I hum softly beneath my breath, doing my best not to imagine a warm, sleepy Evie rolling over and asking to ride my cock and failing miserably. “Good to know.”
She giggles. “You really do seem pleased. Is that the kind of thing guys like to hear?”
“Absolutely.” I shrug. “Well, any guy worth your trouble. Most of us are horny all the time and desperate to get in your pants. The easier you make that for us, the happier we are. Same applies to telling us what you like in bed. We like to make you come. It makes us feel like victorious gladiators kicking ass in the arena.” I pause, grunting as I add, “It’s kind of like hockey that way. The two might have more in common than I realized.”
Evie crosses her arms again, worry creeping in to banish the light in her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Nothing, I just… Vince didn’t seem very keen on being a gladiator. Once he realized how hard it was to get me there, he kind of lost interest. I mean, we only did hand stuff mostly, so maybe that was what bored him but still…”
I rest my hands lightly on her shoulders, giving them what I hope is a reassuring squeeze. “Vince was a selfish shit. We won’t have any problems. I promise. Assuming we don’t change our minds, of course. If you do, that’s completely fine, by the way. We can just forget we had this conversation and move on.”
“I’m not going to change my mind,” she says, stubbornness flickering in her gaze again. “And unless I get a message from you telling me to stay away, I’ll be at your place at seven tomorrow night. I have class until five, and then I’ll need to run home and change out of my grungy paint clothes.”
“I don’t mind your grungy paint clothes,” I say, adding before I can stop myself, “You won’t be wearing them for long anyway.”
She bites her lip, sending a jolt rocketing through me as I realize how much I’d like to do the same. “We’re really going to do this. Aren’t we?”
“I fucking hope so,” I confess, “no matter how much we’ll probably regret it later.”
“We won’t regret it. We can do this, Ian. And who knows, we might end up even better friends on the other side.”
As I lock up and lead the way downstairs, saying goodbye to Evie at the entrance to the subway that will whisk me uptown, I hope like hell that she’s right.
But deep in my bones, where all my most trustworthy instincts live, a choir of voices is singing the “You’re Going to Be Sorry” chorus. At top volume.
Chapter 17
Evie
I don’t know who I am anymore.
The woman who propositioned Ian and seductively confessed her sexy art fantasies isn’t Normal Evie.
But she’s part of me, I realize, as I find myself sketching a pencil drawing of a man’s hand threaded through a woman’s hair in Studio the next afternoon instead of working on my series of baby animals in teacups. I still love baby animals in teacups, but there’s something so sexy about the contrast of the man’s rough skin and the silky curls wrapping around his knuckles.
And I’m not the only one who notices.
My faculty mentor, Ellen, encourages me to keep exploring the “gritty sensuality” of my new style, and not long after, a deeper voice murmurs from over my shoulder, “Wow, that’s really good.”
I jump in my chair as my breath rushes out in surprise.
I spin to see Derrick standing behind me, an uncomfortable expression on his face. I have to fight the urge to whip my drawing pad closed and cover it with my arms the way I would when I was little, and he’d pop into my room to see what I was drawing before dinner.
Instead, I clear my throat and stand up, forcing a smile even though my overprotective big brother is the last person I want to see a mere two hours before my first sex lesson with his best friend.
Ian’s right. Derrick will kill him—and maybe me, too—if he finds out what we’re up to. We’re going to have to keep this deep undercover. Like, all the curtains closed, every door locked, and no cell phones anywhere close by on the off chance that the FBI is listening in, and Derrick is a spy.
“Thanks.” I wipe my pencil-smeared fingers on my overalls. “To what do I owe the pleasure? I thought you were crazy busy at work this week.”
He sighs and drags a hand through his hair, but the carefully cut brown strands fall instantly back into place. Derrick isn’t just a handsome guy; he’s a handsome guy who knows how to groom and dress himself, which is rarer than I realized growing up with a fashion-savvy big brother.