Exposed Exposed (Dom Nation #1) - E. Davies Page 0,60

reminded myself. My boy didn’t know who was sniffing around. He didn’t need to.

Slate smiled and patted the couch next to him in an invitation. I felt like I was being led a little bit, which was unusual, but I obeyed anyway and joined him, passing over a glass.

“It’s only fifteen-year,” I said by way of apology.

“Oh, no.” Slate’s voice was dry, but his eyes sparkled. “Whatever will I do?” I grinned at his bratty moment, waiting for him to take a sip. When he did, he quickly coughed and covered his mouth. “Jesus.”

I laughed and then raised my glass to my lips, letting a few droplets roll over my tongue. They burned, but I knew how to direct them over my palate and into my throat to avoid embarrassing myself. I hid the grimace as it burned a hole straight through my esophagus to my lungs.

Slate eyed me, and then sniffed his glass before he blinked rapidly. “Do you even like this stuff? Or is it part of your Daddy image of always being in control?”

Didn’t he know I was in charge here? But it wasn’t an attack. It wasn’t even a criticism. It was an innocent question, spoken with far too much certainty—like he already knew the answer.

I gaped at him like a goddamn fish. Everything I’d been about to say about the mouthfeel just melted away under his innocent question. “No,” I finally admitted, too startled to do anything but tell the truth. “I hated it at first. I just learned how to drink it to impress people.”

People like the Three Fucketeers, I added mentally. Had it been worth it? Well, my apartment said yes. My unsettled gut said no.

“Thanks for the devastating honesty,” I added as I tried to pull myself together. I wasn’t going to dump that shit on him when he had so much of his own to deal with.

Slate gave me a quick, beautiful grin, but his eyes were serious, and so was his voice when he next spoke. “Well, I know something’s going on with you. And I want to know what it is before we go any further. It’s only fair to me.”

Apparently orgasm had unlocked a side of Slate I had only once glimpsed—in DN, when he’d stopped me from chasing down Isaac and beating the hell out of him verbally or physically. The quiet strength was back, steely and unyielding. It wasn’t born of a flashy command, or a tantrum, but a quiet, steady, earthy resilience.

And if he’s thinking about what’s fair to him, his self-esteem is better than I’ve ever seen it, I thought. I should encourage that. Totally not self-centered.

But I couldn’t lie to myself. It was. A part of me, a scared little part, wanted to open up. I’d been sitting on all my self-loathing for months, all alone and lost—tiny and human—in the endless urban view that unfurled in front of us through the huge, dark windows.

Whiskey or whips didn’t help as I’d hoped. They only numbed it for a time. Drew a curtain across the shame and the outrage that still bubbled in my chest. Behind it, unless I stayed busy, I could hear the constant hissing simmer in my soul.

But I thought I’d been doing a much better job of hiding it, damn it.

“What makes you say that?” I asked at last. I leaned forward to set aside my glass, then stared out the window instead of at him.

If Slate already knew I was screwed-up and he was chasing after me anyway, well… maybe I could afford to let my guard down a little bit more.

“You won’t let me close,” Slate said, laying out the reasons calmly. “You won’t let me see you naked, like that’s more vulnerable than having your dick in my mouth. You won’t even let me cuddle you. You barely let me tell you when or where to sit down.”

I hid both the disconcerting shiver down my spine at his keen observation, and my grin. This boy had teeth. How appropriate. I kind of loved it despite myself.

“And just then, after we cleaned up,” Slate went on, laying his hand tentatively on my knee. “You shut down and sent me to your bedroom, but you had pajamas laid out for me already.”

I shrugged, eyes flickering to him and then away again. “I was going to make you stay the night. Gotta show you how a coffee machine works sometime.”

Slate wouldn’t let me distract him. “You’ve gone beyond the call