Sweet Rivalry (1001 Dark Nights)(33)

He fights back the bark of a laugh, but eventually lets it escape as he just shakes his head at me. “Touché,” he repeats my words back to me.

“If you’re going to bust my chops, Wylder, you should know that I can give as good as I get.”

“Point taken. But since you’re the one singlehandedly charged with busting my balls in rehab over the next three months, you’ve gotta admit, it was a valid question.”

“It was,” I concede, “but it’s your job to talk to me, tell me how it feels, where it hurts, and when it feels good, so I can make it better.” An unexpectedly shy smile slides on his lips when he gets the correlation between what I asked about how to please a woman and my answer.

“Just like sex.”

“Perhaps.” I smile; it’s all I can do as heat flushes my cheeks and the room around us becomes too small for him and this innuendo-laced conversation. “Some men have all the tools in the world, but if they don’t know how to use them, they’re useless. It’s the same with my job. You’ve gotta know how to use your skills, and I assure you, I do. So, if the I-don’t-trust-you-because-you-have-a-vagina-card has been exhausted, can we get started?” I point to the table behind him as he chuckles, and then I begin to adjust the machine.

“You drive a hard bargain, Kitty.” He sits down and pulls off his shirt, discarding it to right of him.

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”