Ivy groaned and hid her face with her hands, closing the spaces between her fingers.
“Do you remember that, too?” he asked.
She wanted to lie. She wanted to tell him that she had no idea what he was talking about. But that wouldn’t really be fair. After all, she’d been the one to ask him what had happened. She’d been the one who’d asked for details. She’d been so, so stupid. And now, her embarrassment was second only to her arousal as she replayed his voice in her head as he’d described her orgasming.
“Ivy?” he prompted.
She took a deep breath and forced her face into the same faux-serene expression she’d adopted when she’d found out about Daniel and Brayden’s mother before glancing up at Will. She refused to meet his gaze, but she stared in his general direction. “I remember,” she finally said.
“So...” He drifted off, almost forcing her to look in his direction.
“So?” she choked out.
“I’ve thought about that moment a lot over the years.”
She closed her eyes. “And?”
“And I can’t help wondering if you were always into breath play, or if that was your first experience with it.”
Her eyes flew open, and she couldn’t turn away from him even if she’d wanted to. “Are you always this direct?”
He nodded, holding her gaze. “Almost always.”
“Great.”
Seemingly endless hours passed, but it probably wasn’t more than a few seconds.
“So...the breath play?”
“First experience. And basically last,” she muttered.
He sat forward a bit. “What was that, love?”
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Did you say, first and last?”
She sighed. “Yes.”
Concern dulled the light in his eyes. “Your body responded like you enjoyed it. Did I scare you? Trigger you, somehow?”
His worry was so intense it practically hovered in the air between them.
“No,” she said, rushing to reassure him. “Nothing like that.” She swallowed hard, remembering when she’d finally worked up the nerve to ask Daniel for what she wanted, and he’d pretty much accused her of being a sexual deviant.
“Then, what?” Will asked, drawing her attention back to him.
“My husband—my ex, I mean...” She turned away from the intensity of Will’s gaze. “He— Let’s just say he wasn’t into it. At all.”
Will was so quiet she had to look at him—had to see what his reaction was. As soon as she glanced his way, she almost wished that she hadn’t. He seemed furious, though she guessed it wasn’t aimed at her, but it still sent a chill down her spine, and she pulled the blanket more snuggly around her.
“And he made you feel like shite, I suppose,” he finally said, his voice tight.
“In a word,” she agreed.
“Arsehole.” Will’s lips turned downward into a beautifully sculpted frown. “Is that why you left him?”
She laughed humorlessly. “Technically, he left me—for the mom of one of my students.”
Will’s mouth dropped open. “The fuck he did.”
“Yep. They should be having their baby, any day now.”
“Oh, Ivy...”
What the hell was the matter with her blurting out this shit, anyway? She needed to glue her lips shut. Glancing at him again, she couldn’t take the pity in his gaze. She’d seen enough of it from the school secretaries and fellow teachers—even some of the parents who’d found out, so she changed the subject. “I wasn’t going to ask when you mentioned it over supper, but since we seem to have found ourselves on this topic, was...this...what you meant when you said you learned a bit about what you liked that night?”
His eyes narrowed slightly as he sat back. He knew exactly what she was trying to do, but perhaps he was feeling particularly sympathetic because he let her.
“Being your typically horny seventeen-year-old, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. How fucking gorgeous you were when you came. How hard you came. I wanted to know if other women liked that. Well, what I really wanted was more time with you. But I settled for the usual source of reliable information.”
Despite her discomfort, Ivy’s lips twitched. “Internet porn?”
“Internet porn,” he confirmed. “Which is where I learned about breath play and all kinds of other interesting things.”
Ivy shifted in her chair. “I am so not going to ask. We’ve explored enough questionable territory tonight.”
“Even though you’re dying to know?”
She frowned at him. “Who says I’m dying to know?”
“Maybe I’m misreading the signs.” He shrugged.
She shook her head. “There are no signs.”
“So, your parted lips and flushed skin and inability to sit still...they’re not signs of arousal?”
She stopped squirming. “Of course not.”
“Pity.”
“Now, you’re just being ridiculous.” She stood, keeping the blanket wrapped tightly around her. The last thing she needed was for him to get a glimpse of her taut nipples poking insistently against the lightweight fabric of her pajama top. “I think I’ll finally be able to sleep, now. Goodnight, Will.”
“’Night.”
She turned and started walking toward her room.
“Ivy?”
Stopping, she looked over her shoulder.
“If you ever want a safe place to explore your kinks, I’m right here.”
Her stomach flipped with nervous excitement, and her throat was suddenly dry. She swallowed hard. “I hate to disappoint you, but I don’t have any kinks.” He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, she added. “And you’re the farthest thing from safe that I’ve ever seen.”
Ivy walked stiffly to the bedroom and quietly closed the door, wishing she had more than a slab of wood between them. It was all she could do to stay in her suddenly too warm room. What she really wanted was to throw open the door, cross the room and straddle Will where he sat on the couch. She wanted to take him up on his offer. She wanted the spanking he’d threatened her with, and she wanted to feel his hand over her mouth. She wanted it around her neck. She wanted him to fill her again. And god, more than anything, she wanted to know what excited him and give him that.
She took a deep breath and pushed down all her wants. None of these things were going to happen. She was going to go to bed, go to sleep, and pretend that they’d never had that conversation. She was going to pretend that Will was nothing more to her than her friend’s little brother—nothing more, nothing less.
After cracking open the window, she climbed into bed and dragged the covers over her too-sensitive skin. Every nerve was alive and sparking beneath her flesh, frantic for Will’s touch. And two hours later, when he crept into the room to wake her, she was just as desperate for his hands on her as ever.
“I know you’re not asleep, love, so you can stop pretending.”
She froze at the sound of his voice.
“I’ve been listening to you toss and turn for the past two hours.”
She sighed as he sat on the bed, his hip resting against her thigh. “If you knew I was awake, you didn’t even need to bother getting up.”
Moonlight filtered in through the window, painting his body with a soft glow. “I still need to check on you. How’s the pain?”
“Fine. As long as I don’t roll over on that side.”
“So, what’s keeping you awake?”
She just stared at him, glad she was hidden by shadows. He couldn’t see her mouth hanging open. What the hell did he think was keeping her awake?
“Did talking about your ex upset you?”
She hadn’t expected him to ask that—she assumed he would have gone into a full flirting assault. She cleared her throat. “Not especially. I’ve had some time to get used to his crap.”
“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.” His voice was soft, almost soothing in the quiet dark. But the deep rumble and the panty-dropping accent combined to settle heavily in her abdomen. She tried to ignore the effect he had on her and focus on his question.
“At this point, it’s more humiliating than anything. Not only does your husband think you’re some sort of sex freak, but then, you discover he’s been fucking one of the PTO moms for over a year?”
“I don’t know what a PTO mum is, but he’s a fucking tosser,” Will ground out. “You deserve so much better than that.”
Why was she even telling him any of this? Maybe something about the warm dark room created a false sense of intimacy. Maybe everything they’d already discussed made it seem like confiding in him was a good idea. But she’d been right when she’d told him earlier that he was anything but safe. And he was the farthest thing from a good idea that she’d ever had.
“So, if it’s not pain keeping you awake, and it’s not your ex that’s got you tossing and turning, what is it?”
She clenched the blankets to keep from touching him and shook her head. “No idea.”
“I have one. Do you want to hear it?”
She stifled a groan. “Probably not.”
“It’s more of a theory, really.”
“Of course it is,” she mumbled.
He shifted on the bed, putting more of his body in contact with her thigh. “I think that you can’t help thinking about those kinks that you supposedly don’t have.”
“You mean the ones I actually don’t have?”
She could make out his grin in the dim light shining through the window. “Fine, let’s call them hypothetical.”
“Fine,” she gritted out.
There was that flash of white as he smiled again. “So, anyway, I think the reason that you’re having trouble falling asleep is that you can’t help thinking about those hypothetical kinks of yours. And you can’t relax with all that arousal coursing through your body. It’s almost as bad as adrenaline.”
“I’m horny? That’s your theory?”
“Sounds reasonable to me. And I should point out, that I’m more than happy to help you with that problem.”
She sighed. “We’re not having sex, Will. Once was enough.”
He leaned over her, bracing his palms against the mattress on either side of her. “That’s where you’re wrong, love. Once isn’t even on the same continent as enough. But I wasn’t offering to have sex with you. I was just offering to make you come. I figure after three or four good, hard orgasms, you’ll fall sound asleep, no problem.”
Her pussy clenched emptily, longing for what he offered. “That’s probably the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” she said, hating the stupidly breathy catch in her voice. “Though...you get points for altruism... Or something.”
He stayed where he was, staring down at her and lifted a shoulder. “You know where to find me if you change your mind.” He slowly sat back then pushed to his feet. “I promise it would be the best sleep you ever had.”
Will gently closed the door behind him, leaving Ivy lying there with her mouth hanging open and her body thrumming with need. There was no way she was getting any sleep tonight. Or possibly ever again.