I don’t want Papa and Helen to see me like this, and I don’t want to feel the guilt I do whenever I stare at them and realise I’m letting them down. Besides, I’m in no mood to explain the wet clothes and the bruises.
“I want to stay the night here,” I whisper.
His eyes widen a little. “I was only throwing it out there, but wow, it worked.”
“Remove your clothes, though. You’ll catch a cold.”
“Just admit you want to see me naked.” He unbuttons his shirt, and then his trousers, throwing them amongst the wet clothes in the back seat.
Water forms a sheen on the smooth ridges of his abs and thighs. His dark blue boxer briefs tighten around his semi-hard cock.
“That’s not true.” I clear my throat, pretending I’m not ogling his half-nakedness. “So what are we going to do?”
“What do you want to do?”
I think about it, and an idea hits me. “Read to me.”
“Read to you?”
“You’ve always read quietly, even when you were a child. I’ve wondered how it would be like if you read aloud.”
Or rather, I’ve fantasised about him reading aloud to me.
“What do you want me to read?” He reaches into his glovebox. “I have a few books here.”
“No. Not one of your boring philosophy books.”
He raises a brow. “Boring, huh?”
“Yeah, well, you can read me those when I want to sleep.” I reach into my bag, retrieve my phone, and open my Kindle app. “Read me this novel.”
“I don’t read from e-books.” He stares at my phone with distaste as if he wouldn’t touch it with a long stick.
“Stop being a paperback snob. Besides, the Kindle app has all your books in one place. You don’t have to carry a few tons with you whenever you want to go somewhere.”
“I don’t carry tons with me. I only take the ones I want to read.”
“Come on, try it.”
“I did and the answer is no.”
“Just this time.”
“Still a no.”
Smirking, I use his own tactics against him. “Are you a coward, Cole?”
He narrows his eyes on me but snatches the phone from between my fingers. As soon as he sees the text, his snobbish expression withers away, making way for a smirk.
“What do we have here? Erotica?”
“Nope, erotic romance. There’s a difference.” Okay, fine, so maybe I went overboard with that, but I wanted to see his expression.
“This is a sex scene, Butterfly.”
“So?”
He raises a brow. “You want me to read sex to you?”