I was ready for her to call me a selfish asshole for what I’d said. I’d deserve it, obviously. Because that’s exactly what I was.
“I’m not sorry I read your book,” she said finally. “But I am sorry I met you.”
“I could fix that,” I said, taking a step closer. We’d been standing a comfortable distance apart, but now I was inside her space. I could smell her scent, and it instantly made my dick stiffen.
“Uh,” she said, visibly swallowing. “I don’t think an autograph would do the trick.”
“I’m not offering an autograph.”
She stared up at me. Suddenly, all the confidence she’d been waving around a moment ago had dried up in a puff of smoke. She looked more delicate. Breakable. Like something I needed to be careful with. “What are you offering, exactly?”
“You and I in that room over there,” I said, pointing. “No attachments. No promises. Just the one encounter and then we go our separate ways, but I can promise you this. You won’t regret meeting me afterwards.”
I didn’t wait for her to respond. I turned and walked to the nearby room. They’d given me a room to use between speaking events, and I knew it’d be all ours for as long as we wanted. I didn’t want to admit how badly I hoped she’d take me up on my offer.
I went into the room, left the door ajar, and waited impatiently to see if she was going to follow.
3
Kenzie
Holy.
Shit.
I’d like to say I was no prude. In fact, I’d watched all of Bridgerton and never once fast-forwarded through a sex scene. I’d even rewound a few times to enjoy the Duke’s glorious buns. Hell, I even had a one-night stand once. Of course, I was kinda thinking of it more like a romantic situation where an instant connection leads to sex and then a relationship would follow. Instead, it had been more like a night of uninspired sex followed by the guy doing his best impersonation of Patrick Swayze in Ghost.
Scratch that. He hadn’t even erotically helped me turn a pot out of clay. He’d just vanished into thin air.
But Sebastian Freaking St. James had let me slap him, admitted to being a selfish prick, then… told me he wanted to have sex with me?
It wasn’t even reverse psychology. Maybe reverse psychopathy was more accurate. So why the hell was it working so well on me?
I felt like a monkey trying to fit a square peg into a circle shaped hole as I attempted to make sense of it all. Me? Why the hell would a guy like that want to sleep with me? And especially after the way I’d come out guns blazing and basically yelled at him?
But I realized those weren’t the questions I needed to be asking. The only important question was whether I actually wanted to do this.
I was a grown ass woman. Sex didn’t have to mean something. Sometimes, sex could just mean being attracted to somebody and wondering if it’d feel nice to have their penis inside you, right?
I blew out a deep breath, then shook out my hands like I was getting ready to take on a prizefighter.
“Shoot first, ask question later, right, Kenzie?” I asked aloud. Except I was usually more of a shoot BB guns and ask questions later kind of girl, if I was being honest. This was like shooting a rocket launcher at a crowded bus full of nuns and asking questions later.
Fuck it, I thought.
Fuck him, I added, in honor of my dad, who loved nothing more than a good dad joke. And then I imagined my dad groaning in disgust at what I’d just imaginarily dragged him into.
I headed for the room, heart pounding out of my chest. I wasn’t going to deny he was easily the sexiest piece of man I’d ever seen on two legs. I may not like him, but it was like he said. No questions asked. Just a little meaningless fling. And what was the worst that could happen? I had pepper spray in my purse.
I yanked open the door and held up my finger. “This doesn’t mean I like you or forgive you,” I started.
Sebastian saw me and the pure hunger in his eyes shut me up. He had been sitting, but he stood and took a step towards me, reaching to loosen his tie. “We’re doing this?” he breathed.
Somehow, he was surrounding me now. His palms were against the door above me, and it had snicked shut from his weight as he leaned in. Some of his hair had fallen loose and was dangling sexily in front of his eyes.
I nodded. “Do you have a, uh?”
Sebastian pulled a condom from his pocket and held it up so I could see it.
I nodded again. He reached slowly for the doorknob and turned the lock. “Then you’re mine,” he said. His breath was a husky rasp that sent chills across my skin and straight to my core.