pushed into the arms of my kitchen chair. His erection pressed against me in the perfect spot, and I bit back a whimper, tugging my bottom lip between my teeth. “Self-control is overrated,” I whispered dragging my lips across his.
He kissed me back, but his hands stayed on my shoulders, like he was ready to end things if we went too far. My face burned—did I make a mistake telling him I couldn’t orgasm? Ever since, it seemed that he was handling me with kid gloves. Tonight was the first time my breasts had seen the light of day in his presence since our petite Moulin Rouge night. Usually, guys took the opposite approach; they saw me as a challenge, thinking they had some sort of magic penis that would make me come instantly. While I didn’t love this about my previous partners, I also didn’t love being treated like I was made out of glass. “Tate,” I whispered, pulling back.
“I got a new app for us to practice your French with.”
I sighed, sliding off his lap and pulling my chair closer beside him as he pulled his iPad out of his backpack and set it in front of me. He turned it on, punching in his code while also reaching for the wine. Those extra few seconds gave me a glance his screen—and at what he’d been reading.
I suddenly forgot all about my French lesson and my sex drive, and blinked, reading the passage from the book that was open. The Elusive Orgasm. I clenched the iPad in my hand, tightly, in case he tried to tear it away from me. It was the sort of book written for women in situations like mine. Women who couldn’t climax.
“No, don’t—” Tate started, reaching for the iPad, but quickly gave up, dropping his face into a hand.
“What’s this?” I asked, skimming the page that was open on the screen. He didn’t answer at first, but dragged his hand down over his nose, landing at his stubble and scratching his chin.
“I, uh, I don’t know. I just wanted to learn more. Know more about what—if anything—I could do to, I don’t know…help.” He shook his head, grabbing the iPad from me and clicking open a French learning app. “It was stupid, I know. I’m sorry—”
“No,” I cut in, grasping his face between my hands. “Not stupid.” I shook my head. All through my adult life, guys just did with me what they did with every girl. But here in front of me was a guy willing to read, and learn, and research. Tingles swirled down my chest, dropping into my stomach.
“It’s sweet. And wonderful. And…and it makes me feel really special.”
Wrapping his hand around the back of my neck, he pulled me gently down to his lips. “Shelby, you are special.”
I slid my hand up his thigh until he caught my hand, head falling back with a groan.
“Qu’est-ce que je vais faire avec toi?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. ”What are you going to do with me, Tate?”
Mischief and arousal sparked in those crystalline eyes of his. “I know what I want to do,” he said quietly.
My eyes flicked to the iPad. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve learned in your little private reading sessions?”
He swallowed so hard that I saw the muscles at his throat contract. “Okay,” he said, nodding. “If you can translate this sentence in under five seconds.” A deep breath dragged through his lips, and the words flew past his tongue, faster than I’d ever heard him speak French to me before. “Je veux va te faire foutre tellement dur. Je vais t’emmener au septieme ciel avec ma langue et ma queue.”
My mind flew through the French words I knew. Shit. Shit, shit, shit… It went so quickly, I barely got the words, let alone the order of them. Avec ma queue… with my…What the hell was queue?
“And…time,” Tate whispered, pressing a kiss to my jaw. “Five seconds is up. Time to study.”
“That’s not fair. You went too fast.”
He shrugged. “You think Ceele is going to wait for you to be ready? You think he’s going to slow his speech patterns to make it easier?”
Damn him. “Well, next time you’re turned on and ready to, you know…I’ll be sure to bring up Ceele, as well.” I gave him a playful tap on the cheek.
A deep laugh rumbled from Tate’s chest and he nodded, sliding the French book back over to me. “Fair enough. Now study.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
SHELBY
I