he’d learned all that. Sammy wasn’t going to pull one over on him.
“First of all, her breathing changes. Her pupils dilate. Her skin gets flushed. Not a blush. Flushed. Color that spreads up your neck and into your face. Goes all the way down over your breasts.” His heart was starting to pound heavily, his blood running hot in his veins. Because it was far too easy for him to build a picture in his mind that put Sammy into the position of lover. And that was something that he didn’t do. But he was breaking a host of rules right now. With her. And he didn’t know how to turn back now.
“Her nipples are tight. She’s wet between her legs.”
“That’s arousal,” she said breathlessly, taking a drink of beer. “That’s not an orgasm.”
“You didn’t let me finish. Because then that’s when the magic happens. Some women are quiet. Some women are loud. But their muscles tighten and shake. And if I’m buried inside them, or my fingers are, I can feel all that pleasure squeezing them tight, deep and desperate. It’s almost as good as coming yourself. If you’re the kind of man who knows the value of pleasing his partner. And I sure as hell do.”
“Great,” she said, her voice thin. “Thank you for the sex-ed lesson.”
“Not a problem.”
She was shaken by that. And a damn good thing, too, because so was he. He took a long drink of beer.
But maybe she might be too consumed by her own issues to pay attention to how he was looking right now. It was only sheer force of will that prevented him from being physically affected by that moment.
But he had a lot of practice not getting hard with Sammy.
So this was not an unusual experience for him.
“What about Lincoln?” she asked, gesturing to a man standing in the corner with a beanie pushed back on his head and one of those small French artist-looking beards that seemed like a man lacked either the testosterone or commitment to go with the full beard. Neither of which spoke well of him, in Ryder’s opinion.
“Cool. If you want your baby to be a hairless, craft-beer-drinking snob.”
“I don’t think snobbery or beer taste is genetic.”
“But you don’t know that.”
She huffed. “You’re actually the one that sounds like a snob right now.”
“I’m just saying.”
“You’re just saying a whole lot of toxic, stereotypical things.”
“You like it when I’m like that. Because I’m the secret part of your brain that you never let out, Sammy. And I think we both know that.”
He was making assumptions now. That maybe he was the hard, dark edge to her sunny sweetness. Just as she was any amount of optimism that he was able to access.
“This isn’t helpful. I don’t know why it should surprise you that I want a man that exemplifies the kinds of things I care about.”
“Corduroy and beekeeping?”
“He’s my type,” she insisted.
“Your type doesn’t turn you on,” he said.
Their eyes clashed, and it was like lightning cracking over the mountain that night. Sudden and sharp and echoing down into the valley below. The valley of his soul.
“Fine. I don’t need to be turned on. Maybe I just need to be intellectually stimulated.”
“Baby, if you were stimulated on any level you would have come.”
“I don’t...” Her face had gone red again. “I’m done with that part of the discussion.”
“We are actively talking about which man in here you should sleep with.”
“For the purposes of creating life.”
“You may have to sleep with him many times. You don’t just get pregnant the first time.”
“I’ll check my ovulation. There are predictors for that. You could just buy them at the store. They’re like next to the pregnancy tests and condoms and maxi pads.”
“Thank you for that little verbally guided tour of the grocery store. But I did know that.”
“How do you know that?”
“I’ve bought condoms. And maxi pads.”
She squinted and looked at him through her spiky, golden lashes. “You’ve bought maxi pads?”
“I basically raised three daughters, Sammy. I have bought maxi pads. Tampons. You name it. I’m sorry. Does the kind of man you hang out with usually get disgusted by that?”
“No.” She sniffed. “They’re actually very enlightened. It wouldn’t bother them at all.”
“Sure. Or is it that you didn’t expect me, caveman that I am, to be completely okay with that?”
“I didn’t think about it.”
“Have you ever gone and bought that stuff for the girls?”
Sammy frowned. “No.”
“Who do you think talked to them about all that. I mean, Iris