“Yours didn’t?”
“Mine couldn’t figure me out. They didn’t know who I was. Oh, they loved me very much, but they didn’t know what to do with me. They acquiesced to everything without any advice. My parents are uncomplicated, simple people who did the best they could.”
“That made you a loner?”
“It made me self-reliant, and I like that. Other people give me advice, but I go with what I think.”
“What about sex?”
“I don’t have much experience there.”
“Hmm. You could have fooled me.”
“When I touched myself in front of you, it made me feel…”
“Vulnerable?”
“Yes. I guess that’s why I got spooked. I realized that if I had to lower my barriers that much, just to show you how bold I was, what would it be like to allow you to touch me, slide into my body.”
“But you wanted that. I could see it on your face.”
“I did and it made me angry when you said I was repressed.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew it was true and I wanted to prove you wrong.”
“You want to explore me, Kate? Explore away. If your scientist mind wants to push me to my limits and see what happens, hell, I’m there.”
“You push me harder than anyone I’ve ever met.”
“But it makes you hot when I push,” he pointed out. “I can sense it. Pushing you is the only way to get you there. By pushing you to that pinnacle, you can soar, Kate, just the way you want to. Let all of your inhibitions go.”
It was hard to structure what she wanted to say with his eyes deep and penetrating, breaking her concentration. She closed her eyes to gain her composure. “The ones I repress.”
“Yes.”
“But I’ve never been aggressive.”
“I’ve heard differently. When you’re pressed to the wall, you snarl like a she-wolf. So don’t give me that crap.”
She blinked at him. No one had ever talked to her like this. Maybe she’d been too pampered and indulged. She liked that he didn’t pull his words to save her embarrassment, but to make her think harder.
“Don’t give me that innocent look. You can’t hide from me. I can see right into you.”
“I know you can. It makes me crazy the way your eyes seem to take in everything.” Intrigued, the fear she felt at revealing herself to him paled in comparison to her need to know, in words, what he saw. “Tell me what you see.”
“Something volatile. Hot, volcanic, and primal. It draws me mercilessly. Makes me insane and restless.”
The sound of that restless quality to his voice made her edgy. She moved against him to feel the texture of his skin sliding over hers. She wanted to crawl inside him. “How hard are you going to push?”
“Hard,” he said, his lips playing over her cheekbone. “I want to see how far you’ll go.”
“You want me to surrender. It goes both ways. I need a compromise.”
“What compromise?”
“You tell me why you really pretended not to want me for…how long?”