Sweet Liar (Dirty Sweet, #1)(9)

So then she was definitely into some weird bedroom stuff. Interesting.

Finally, she sighed. “Fine. I won’t knock the age difference.” She came around to the front of the couch and sank down next to me. “I don’t actually care what you’re into anyway, as long as it’s consensual. I just don’t want you getting hurt. Dylan doesn’t seem into relationships. You get that, right? Not to mention that you live on entirely different continents.”

I had been defensive before, but now I was incensed. “It was just a kiss! God. I’m not planning to marry the guy.” I stretched my legs out in front of me and studied my toes so I didn’t have to look at her. She was being dramatic.

Even though it hadn’t been just a kiss.

It had been the best kiss. It had been grinding and thrusting and heavy petting. It had told me everything I needed to know about Dylan—that he was skilled and sensitive and seduceable. It had been the stars aligning, bringing a man who needed to be reminded to let his emotions loose together with me, a woman who needed practice getting physically loose.

But Sabrina was skeptical. “Just a kiss,” she repeated.

Did I mention she was being dramatic? Just because I’d fallen hard and fast for a few men that didn’t work out didn’t mean that I didn’t know how to protect myself. It didn’t mean that I wanted to change who I was, either. I was a girl who felt things. I knew who I was. I knew what I was made of—big emotions packed into a little body. And keeping all those feelings pent up in such a small space was impossible. I couldn’t stuff my passion into some dark corner of my soul the way Sabrina did. I lived from the heart. I loved with my entirety. I loved frequently and deeply, and if that meant I hurt sometimes—or a lot of times—so be it. My heartbreaks shaped me into who I was.

And I liked who I was.

All that being said, love wasn’t the reason I was drawn to Dylan. He was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass up, a choice I almost couldn’t help but make. Opportunity knocked, but Fate had seemed to be at the door as well.

Seeing how the conversation had gone so far, though, I really didn’t think Sabrina was in a place to understand the whole truth.

I settled for partial honesty, peering up at her with a sigh. “I felt bad for the guy. All that doom and gloom. ‘Love’s dead. Grump, grump.’ He needed something nice for a change.”

She narrowed her gaze. “So you thought you’d kiss him and that would show him. Make him magically believe in hearts and romance again?”

“Shut up.” Now she was just being mean. Would she always think of me as the little girl she had to parent? She wasn’t my mother. And little girls grew up eventually.

I slumped in my seat and pouted. “You think I’m na?ve.”

She gave me a look that said she very much wanted to lecture me, but when she leaned toward me, it was just to kiss me on the head. “I think you’re amazing,” she said.

And I grinned at her. Not because she’d told me I was amazing—she was my sister; she was sort of obligated to think that—but because she was amazing. She’d basically been my mother since she was thirteen years old. I knew it took an effort for her to let me make my own choices, make my own mistakes. I was proud of her for fighting against her instincts.

Maybe her latest relationship was changing her for the good.

Which reminded me, she and I had parted this evening when she’d left with her “boyfriend,” and all we’d talked about since she’d gotten home was me.

I wasn’t amazing, after all.

I nudged her with my shoulder. “Hey. Tell me what happened with Donovan.”

We spent the next half an hour talking about her night and her kiss—seems I hadn’t been the only Lind girl to get some action from a Reach CEO. Then, after I’d convinced her to look on the bright side about her romantic situation, I said good night and slipped into her guest room.

It wasn’t even ten o’clock, still early, considering that I was used to staying up until two in the morning most nights with my graduate studies, but Sabrina had to work in the morning, and I didn’t want to be the reason she was dragging her feet come six a.m.

I was hardly tired, though. The buzz from the dinner’s wine had long ago worn off, and there was a new energy stirring in me. An excited energy. An energy that had me fidgeting and restless in the queen bed I had all to myself.

The excitement was over Dylan and the freaking insane way he knew how to use his mouth. I could imagine those lips elsewhere on my body—along the curve of my jaw, down my neck. Lower, lower. Lower still.

I’d had men go down on me, but I’d never had one give me an orgasm. I bet Dylan knew how to satisfy a woman that way. I could tell by how he controlled our kiss with his tongue. He was more alpha than he appeared, with his brooding British act. It was refreshing, considering how many guys I’d been with who had been all around nice guys, including under the covers. Too nice. So nice they didn’t know when to add a little pressure or another finger or even a hair tug.

Dylan was polite, but he wasn’t nice. He was respectful, but he was also aggressive. He’d practically had me coming just from our makeout session, and he hadn’t even gotten his fingers inside my panties.

If that was what an older man could do, I was never planning to date a guy my age again.