“I think you’ve found a challenge that you’re insistent on winning. Had I been a regular girl who threw herself at your feet that first day, we would have done…” Her tough act falters when she chokes on the next word. “Sex. Then you would have walked away and moved on with your life. But because I said no, your ego was bruised. You can’t move on until you conquer me. You can’t let my disrespect go without winning your dignity back. But here’s the thing; I’m not playing your game. I’m not playinganygame. I’m not trying to be rebellious, or trick you into something neither of us want.”
I slide my fingertips along her forearm. “I want you.”
“And I want to be treated like a lady the next day.” She snatches her hand away. “It would seem we’re incompatible. And since I know that about us, I won’t waste my time trying to change you. I’ve already given you too much.”
“Too much? You haven’t given me anyth–”
“When I find my real prince, I’m going to have to explain to him what I let you do. I’ll be ashamed, I’ll be sorry. And then I’ll spend the rest of my life feeling guilty for not saving myself for him. The same way you should feel guilty about not remembering that girl from the bar.”
“So because I gavethe sexto a woman who wanted exactly what I wanted – a casual hookup – I’m to be condemned? That’s not how this works, princess. Adults have casual sex. It’s what we do when we stop coloring and playing video games. It’s what we do when we grow the fuck up.”
“It would seem you haven’t grown up yet, because you still can’t find a way to express your thoughts and feelings without cussing. Perhaps if you’d spent more time listening in school, and less time hounding the female population for meaningless sex, you would know how to speak intelligently.”
“Do you get off with your Miss Priss attitude?” I lean forward and narrow my eyes. “Does it make you feel superior to speak down to me that way? I said I like sass. And I do. I fuckinglovesass – outside the bedroom. But in it, you’ll submit, and you’ll fucking love it.”
“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”
She tries to take a step back, but I hook an arm around her tiny waist and yank her to a stop.
“Let me go, then leave my store.”
“I’m not leaving, because we’re not done. You’re the most sexually repressed woman I know. Twenty-five and still a virgin, because you think there’s a mythical Adonis out there waiting for you. He’s not real. This romanticized idea you carry around with you is nothing but a dream. It’s for little girls who lay on their pink bed on a Sunday afternoon and marry their Barbie and Ken dolls. But I’m here, I’m real, and I can make you forget your inhibitions for a little while. I could free you from the constraints you put on yourself. I could show you things you didn’t know existed.” I lean in and nip at her jaw. “I could make you come right now, and you wouldn’t be able to stop it.”
I might be able to walk away from this impossible, high-maintenance diva if I knew she didn’t want me too. But she does. Her eyes are hooded, her heart races, and the longer I hold her, the more her body quivers.
“You’re playing a game, alright, Priss. But it’s just you, and you’re the only one you’re trying to convince.”
“I will not come to you, Spencer.” Her voice is quiet, but steely. “I will not submit. I will not waste my one and only first time. And I will not live the rest of my life trying to make it up to my husband when he asks why I made poor choices.”
She slips out of my grasp and clears half the store in long strides.
“Leave, and don’t come back.”