“It’s how everyone else sees me.” She shrugged again.
“I would have to disagree.”
“Just ask Mal or Aubrey. Or Mason. Or, fuck, you can ask Lynn for that matter. Even my own parents didn’t want me, Will,” she said. And my heart went soft when she used my real name.
“You just called me Will.” I smiled at her.
The corners of her mouth tipped up ever so slightly and she rolled her eyes at me. “Am I not supposed to?”
“No, I like it. You should do it more often.” Like when I’m inside you. I didn’t say that out loud, and I had to look away from her when the thought popped into my head.
“What was that look for?” she asked, her eyes narrowing at me.
“What look?”
She laid her fork down. “Don’t do that.”
I laid mine down too. “Don’t do what?”
“You gave me a look, but I don’t know what it was for. I don’t understand, Will. Could you please explain it?”
Shelly was worried, and I felt like the biggest asshole in the history of assholery. I coughed into my fist. “I like hearing you say my name. And I was thinking about how nice it would be to hear you say it when I’m inside you. Preferably screaming it, but hearing it on a moan or a gasp would be nice too.” I coughed again, and I reached down to adjust my junk. Her eyes fell to the tabletop, and they didn’t move for a moment. Then she looked into my eyes. “That was what I was thinking.”
“Oh,” she replied.
“Yeah.”
“Did you try the fish?” she asked, stabbing it with her fork. “It’s really good.” But there was color in her cheeks that wasn’t there before.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I just crossed a line. And I’m sorry I’ve made you uncomfortable.” And I was sorry. I wouldn’t have been that forthright with anyone else, and I shouldn’t have said that with Shelly, even though she did demand for me to tell her.
“I’m not uncomfortable,” she replied. “What makes you think I am?”
I waved a hand. “The color on your cheeks. The hitch in your breath. The flush of your chest.”
“That’s not embarrassment,” she said.
“Then what is it?” I stared at her hard, and she stared back, refusing to break eye contact for even a second.
“That’s desire. I want you too, Will.”
Jesus. Fuck. I squirmed in my seat. “Shelly,” I said slowly.
“Yes, Will?” She stuck her fork in her mouth upside down and slowly pulled the tines out. I watched as she did it, fully enthralled.
“I have no idea what I was about to say.” I laughed, and she laughed too. I scrubbed a hand down my face.
“You were going to say that we should get out of here and go home.”
“I would love nothing more than to do that, but I kind of made plans for after this,” I said with a wince.
“What kind of plans?”
“Well, now I’m thinking that my plans are stupid, because your plans sound like so much more fun.”
“What kind of plans, Will?” she asked again sweetly.
“I thought we could go shoot one another.”