Make Me - Tessa Bailey Page 0,38

me, Russell.”

“Goddammit,” he breathed, feeling like he’d just run fifteen miles in the blistering sun. Barbed wire damaged his insides, neck to stomach. But Jesus, below the sharp pain, his cock had hardened to the point of agony. His hands punished the leather seat, so he wouldn’t reach for her, settle her on his lap, and enter her pussy beneath that flimsy skirt. Would she whimper and twist around, trying to get off? Or would she let him talk her through her first time? What if he damaged the trust she’d placed in him by causing her pain? God, that would kill him. Just the act of sitting there beside her, knowing what she wanted and not acting, was a torture he could barely withstand. He wanted to end the torture. Wanted so badly to show her what the word fucking really meant . . . What it meant to him. . .

“Say something,” she said beside his ear, distress evident in her voice, slicing him to ribbons. “I can never tell what you’re thinking anymore.”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes.” Her voice was firm. “I do.”

The part of Russell that craved self-preservation encouraged him to tell her. It would push her away until he could sort his life out, sort these urges out. But would he ever get her back if she knew? There were no guarantees. Still, didn’t she deserve to know whom she wanted to gift with her virginity? “Abby, I . . .” He swallowed a handful of nails. “Did you like it when I spanked you?”

She pressed her lips right up against his ear. “I liked it a lot.”

Christ. She couldn’t realize what she was saying. Didn’t know any better. “There are other things I think about doing. I’m not sure . . . a normal guy, a good guy would want to do those things to you, Abby.”

“What does normal mean? Some people would say a twenty-four-year-old virgin isn’t normal.” For a moment, he swore she was going to kiss him. Her lips were less than an inch from his, her eyelids at half-mast. He would have let her, too. Wouldn’t have had the willpower to stop her. “Whatever you are, Russell. That’s what I want.” His heart was pounding so violently, a response was out of the question. His love would have just poured out like water from a fire hose. He was grateful that she continued, until her words fully registered. “I know you don’t want anything serious, and that’s okay. We were friends before . . .” Her spine straightened in degrees. “ . . . and we’ll be friends after.”

Chapter 11

MAYBE BRAVERY CAME in fragments. Back at the office and in the limousine, she’d had a bright burst of independence. She still couldn’t quite believe what she’d said to Russell. Or what he’d said in response. What was done was done, though. It couldn’t be taken back, and she didn’t want it to be. Rather, she couldn’t wait to assert herself again. Perhaps that explained why she’d feigned sleep promptly after propositioning her best friend and remained that way the duration of the trip. She’d been resting up for more speaking her mind. Right.

Or it might have been an attempt to ignore the phone calls and emails she could already feel clocking in on her phone, vibrating the device in her purse. She didn’t have to check the screen to know it was her mother. Mitchell. But she wasn’t playing ball today.

Abby tugged the key to the estate out of her purse, unable to resist smiling over her friends’ animated chatter as they wheeled their suitcases behind her on the driveway. Most of them were animated, anyway. Russell’s expression was carved from stone as he looked up at the thirty-thousand-square-foot vacation home Abby’s father had bought as a wedding present to her stepmother.

Many of her childhood memories had been formed inside these walls although they weren’t all pleasant. If she could project them against a blank wall, an observer would say the memories were pretty. Beautiful, even. White, billowing curtains. Beautiful women in pastel dresses, their summer tans glowing. Glasses of sparkling, gold liquid being passed around. Drifting piano music. The fragrant smell of the Atlantic lifting the hair from her neck.

Abby pushed open the front door and stepped aside to let everyone pile into the house. Louis threw a laughing Roxy over his shoulder and strode into the white-marble foyer, his expression one of familiarity, since his family’s money was