Turning her head to glare at me, she says, “What are you, an animal? Don’t talk like that in front of the books.”
Keeping my hand on her hip and my mouth close to her face, I tell her, “I’ll talk however I damned well please.”
“You’re going to get us kicked out,” she complains.
“No one is going to kick me out,” I assure her. “Do you like Dr. Seuss?”
She frowns at my abrupt subject change. “What?”
I release her hips and walk ahead of her, nodding for her to follow me over to the selection of children’s books. They’re enclosed in a glass case, but I point out the big, blue first edition of The Cat in the Hat.
“This was my favorite book when I was a kid,” I tell her.
“Yeah?” she asks, peering into the case. “I actually never liked that one. I liked a lot of Seuss books, but this one lost me at the end. I was like, how do you not tell your mom something like that happened? If I tried to keep something like that to myself as a kid, I would have developed an ulcer from the guilt.”
My lips curve up in a faint smile. “You were a good girl, weren’t you?”
Her cheeks flush prettily and she focuses her attention on the book in the case. At least, that’s how it looks, but she bites down on her bottom lip. No one bites down on their bottom lip looking at children’s books—at least, no one without some serious perversions.
No, her mind isn’t on the books, so it went somewhere else. What did I say?
Good girl.
My gaze snaps to her flushed cheeks and her plump lip. I can’t remember if I called her that. It’s possible; I’ve certainly said it before. I just can’t remember if I said it to her. I can’t ask. She would be highly unimpressed to realize I can’t keep straight who I’ve said that to. On a different, less pleasant hunch, I ask, “Does he call you that?”
She doesn’t answer me with her words, but the flush climbs up her neck and she steadfastly ignores me. “My favorite book was Goodnight Moon,” she tells me, blocking out my attempt to pry. “Carly used to read it to me all the time when I was little.”
I guess he does.
Bastard.
I hope she’s keeping track of every single time, because I am going to punish her little ass when it’s mine again. Every orgasm she’s given or received, I expect repayment for.
“Tell me something,” I begin. Laurel braces her hands on the edge of the display case and peers inside, pointedly not looking at me. “After Easter, why didn’t you fuck anyone else? I’d shown you what good sex was like; didn’t you want more of it?”
Appearing mildly annoyed, Laurel looks at me. “There’s not a ‘good sex’ store you go to, you know. I realize you live an entirely different lifestyle, but that’s not how it works for me. I can’t just go out and pick someone up, and… and…”
“Fuck them?” I suggest, since she’s struggling to finish her sentence. “Why not?”
“I don’t know,” she says, mildly irritated. “It just isn’t that simple.”
“It can be,” I point out. “Look how simple it was with me.”
“That’s because you’re you,” she says, pointing an accusing finger in my direction.
“And it was that simple with Sin,” I add.
Now she shakes her head, though I get the impression she’s reluctant to talk about this with me. “That wasn’t simple.”
“Well, you fell into bed with him the same night you met him, so it must not have been too complicated,” I tell her.
Laurel doesn’t answer me, but she does drift away from the children’s display, like she can’t stomach talking about sex in front of their innocent little pages.
“Did you find Mateo attractive?” I ask her, out of curiosity. She does seem to have a type—dangerous, powerful, and dominant.
Her cheeks flush again. “I found Mateo married,” she informs me.
That’s a yes. “What about Vince?”