The moment I’m finally inside Will’s room, panic sets in.
Did I just willingly enter the room of the great seducer (which no one calls him but absolutely should) Will Griffin? I’m not prepared enough for this. What if he proposes we take our lessons to the bed? Oh gosh—what if he was serious about those condoms, and he intends for us to sleep together?! Am I going to be able to resist the temptation of all that is Will? Do I want to resist? If I didn’t, it would require admitting I’m still a virgin, and I think that’s something I’d rather he never know.
But then I look around at his room and relax with a little laugh. There’s one of Mabel’s standard quilts on the bed (courtesy of Gemma’s quilt shop, Comfort Quilts), and there are several decorative trinkets on the dresser and bedside tables. A random owl. An antique clock. A pillow embroidered with the words Pretty as a Peach sitting in the middle of the neatly made bed where the top edge of the sheet is folded down primly. The only evidence that Will stays here is the cell phone charger plugged into the wall and the folded clothes on the dresser. Other than those, nothing suggests a modern-day version of a rake is staying here.
Clearly, I have nothing to worry about.
The door suddenly opens and Will rushes in, closing it behind him.
He leans back against it like he just outran a bear. In his butterfly hand is a piece of white siding. “Damn, Annie, what are you turning me into? I’m now at a new level of awful after having to deliberately rip off a piece of Mabel’s siding before they all came to look! Of course I told her I’d fix it for her—but I feel like I’m going to have bad dreams after seeing how proud she looked at me for offering to fix it after I was the one who ripped it off.” He’s still wearing the same black cargo pants and green tee from this morning, but now he has a roguish, excited smile in place. It fades when he takes in my expression. “Why are you smiling like that?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” I say, waving him off and still not able to hold back my chuckles.
He cocks his head skeptically and tosses the piece of siding onto the bed. “Okay, it’s clearly not nothing. What’s with the laughter?”
I shake my head and give in to it, laughing until little mist droplets form in my eyes. “It’s silly. But I was a little nervous to hang out with you in your room tonight because of your reputation. But then when I realized you’re living in one of the Golden Girls’ rooms, I didn’t feel so worried anymore.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he says, looking highly offended now. “Why don’t you feel worried anymore?”
“Because!” I say, laughing again as I think of Will trying to seduce me on top of that blue-and-white-checkered quilt. “Look at this room! The only thing you could hold in here is a Bible study.”
“Psh,” he says looking away and then back again with a grin I’ve come to know as a precursor. “You think this decor matters one bit? If I wanted to seduce you, the frills on a pillow aren’t going to stop me.”
“Nope—sorry, I call bull crap,” I say, sitting on the end of the very wholesome and unsexy bed. “Here I was thinking that Will Griffin would live somewhere with satin sheets and a record player in the corner where he could offer to show me his favorite slow jams that would set the mood. A real den of iniquity—”
“Well, I don’t love that name.”
“But really, it’s just getting me in the mood to go to the farmers market! Does this thing even…” I bounce on the mattress a few times. “Oh my gosh! It doesn’t even squeak, Will! What kind of a ladies’ man are you?!” I lose it, falling back on the mattress with a devastating laugh.
He watches me with a smile. “Are you enjoying yourself?”
“Quite. Because, you, sir, are a disgrace to bad boys everywhere by living in a room like this! I’m tempted to take pictures of you standing there with the Bless This Mess embroidery behind you and then sell them to BuzzFeed.”
Will steps toward me with a lazy smile. “All right. Get your ass up.”
I feel drugged and loose-limbed from joy as I sit up and take his outstretched hand. “Where are we going? To make some jam in the kitchen?”
But then my breath catches in my lungs when we get to the door and Will whirls me around so that my back is flat against it. “Because you’ve insulted my very carefully practiced reputation, your lessons start now. I’m going to demonstrate a few things—skipping lesson one, which I’d planned as light first date flirting—and we’ll jump all the way to lesson seven: postdate seduction for when you’re ready to take someone to bed.”
Oh Lordy.
“But first, I believe in absolute consent at all times. So I need to know if it’s okay for me to touch your hands—and only your hands?”
I swallow and nod, feeling my pulse throb against my neck.
“Words, Annie. I need to hear you say yes.”
I clear my throat. “Yes.”
“Great.” He steps closer—so close that his chest is almost brushing mine, and his bluish-gray eyes are searing through me. That suddenly feels like way too much distance. Will’s gaze holds mine—mesmerizing me as he intertwines our fingers. Slowly. Intentionally. Never has my skin felt so alive.
His hands are big and calloused and warm. Slowly he raises both of my hands above my head and presses them back against the door. Not too hard, not too soft. Just the right amount of pressure. Speaking of pressure, my body is now dying for him to close the gap between us. To press me to him and…I don’t know, just do something!
My lips part and Will’s eyes lower—watching the moment as it happens. The smallest of curves touches the corners of his mouth before he drops his lips to the side of my face. His breath brushes against the shell of my ear and tickles every nerve ending in my body—fertilizing them and somehow growing more. New sensations I’ve never known surface in the pit of my stomach and…lower. He smells so good. Feels so good.
“First things first…” Sweet molasses, his quiet, rumbly bedroom voice is hot. “It’s never about the room. The room doesn’t play a part in sex.” His voice is deep and amused and confident. This is exactly how I imagined he’d be in this situation. No—better.
As promised, he touches nothing but my hands. I am slowly perishing.
He continues—his breath hot and heavy against the side of my face. “In a bind, a closet, a bathroom, even a car will do just fine.” His mouth lowers even farther to breathe against my neck now. Never touching me, just breathing. “Decor doesn’t matter.” He moves up my throat as he speaks, and on to the other side. I angle my head like I want to make sure he reaches every spot and crevice. “Because if I’ve effectively captured her attention through the date, from the moment we’re alone, her pulse will be racing, and her mind will be absorbed with touch and breath and so much desire that the color of my damn bedspread won’t even cross her mind once.”
His mouth is at my ear again, and his hands continue to hold mine pinned above my head with a delicious gentle pressure that makes me squirm. One I didn’t know I liked. Didn’t know I needed. Now I’m afraid I’ll feel deprived of it for the rest of my life.
Will moves from my ear, fanning his breath across my jaw to hover just in front of my lips now. “Annie, open your eyes and look at me,” he commands, and until that point, I didn’t even realize my eyes were shut.
When my eyelids spring open, I feel drunk. His gray gaze is dark now and heavy on mine. I feel desperate for him to tip forward and kiss me. His thumb tracks back and forth over the inside of my wrist. I barely remember what I was here for today or what my name is, for that matter. All I know is my pulse is drumming loudly in my ear, and it seems to be saying the same thing over and over again. Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.
With his mouth only a centimeter apart from mine, he smiles. “Believe me?”