Finding West by June Gray Read Free Book Online Page A

acceptable social interactions—turned me on. She had no filter, physical or verbal, and it was unpredictably exhilarating.
    “ You should see yourself,” she said, the pads of her thumbs rubbing along my lips. “And you say I’m beautiful.”
    “You are.” I curled my hands around the edge of the counter to keep from grabbing her and holding her body flush against mine.
    “ You can’t be real.” A moment later, she cleared her throat and moved aside. “Sorry. I got carried away.”
    I touched her wrist. “It’s fine.”
    “It’s just... I’ve just never—”
    “You’ve never touched a man?”
    She barked a laugh. “No, I have. But not one that looks like you.”
    “Have you ever been with a man?”
    “Of course I have.”
    My eyebrows rose in surprise. “And did you enjoy it?”
    “That’s none of your fucking business.”
    She turned to leave when I grabbed her arm. “I’m sorry. I just want to get to know you.”
    “Drilling me about my sexual past is not the place to start.”
    I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m trying to understand how someone like you could be single right now. It doesn’t seem possible.”
    She folded her arms under her breasts. “I’m single because men are selfish animals who just take their pleasure and give nothing back in return. At least my vibrators leave me satisfied.”
    If I hadn’t been hard before, the mental image of her playing with a vibrator finished me off. “Maybe you just haven’t met the right man.”
    She snickered. “Let me guess, you’re the right man?”
    “I might be.”
    “You can’t even remember your name! How could you possibly stand there and claim that you’re good in bed?”
    I pushed away from the counter and stepped to her, knowing she’d stand her ground. I loomed over her, asserting my dominance. “I don’t need my memory to know we’d be combustible together. I don’t need a history or past to explore every curve of your body, learn every move that makes you quiver,” I said, my muscles bunching up from the effort it was taking not to grab her. “I don’t need to know my name because by the time I’m done, you’ll forget yours.”
    Kat was frozen in place, her face a mask of indifference, but her eyes gave her away, those blue orbs that touched every part of me as if measuring my sincerity.
    I gave her room to breath, feeling a sense of caveman satisfaction at having knocked her so off-kilter. She was as turned on as I was if her ragged breathing was anything to go by. But I knew I’d already pushed her far enough; now I needed to wait for her to come to me.
    She swallowed. “I thought I told you not to say shit like that,” she said but her voice was without its earlier conviction.
    “I’ m just telling you what I know,” I said. I reached up to rub my beard and felt bare skin instead. It felt strange, as if I’d somehow revealed something unexpected about myself. I turned away, grabbed the back of the chair, and took it back to the kitchen. When I came back, Kat was in the hallway, looking as if she still wanted to say something.
    I leaned a shoulder against the wall and waited.
    “I’m not a virgin, okay?” she said a little grumpily. “I don’t even know why it matters, but I’ve had sex with two men. So don’t get the idea that you need to deflower me,” she said, making air quotes.
    “ Okay,” I said. “No deflowering. Noted.”
    She walked off towards the living room saying nothing else. She grabbed her laptop and the blanket that was folded over the back of the couch and lay down. Josie immediately jumped up, circled a few times then lay on her feet.
    “You look cozy,” I said, sitting on the recliner, which I realized was fast becoming my spot. One day I’d get her to invit e me onto that couch, and maybe eventually into her bed.
    She flicked a glance at me then promptly turned her eyes back to the computer screen, apparently too intimidated to look at me for long. “This is what I