How to Misbehave (Short Story) by Ruthie Knox Page B

years. So I just made this little sound, like
oh!
and he seemed to think that was it, and he slapped along to the conclusion.”
    Afterward, she’d felt scooped-out and empty, and she hadn’t been able to understand why. She’d gone to mass with her mother, just to see if she could find some glimmer of the feeling it used to inspire in her, and she’d felt nothing. No sin. No forgiveness. Just … nothing.
    “He called me a few times after that, but I didn’t call him back.”
    She rinsed off the soap and cut the water, wrung it from her hair, and pushed the excess droplets off her arms and legs with the flats of her hands. When she emerged into the clouded bathroom, he held open her old green towel and wrapped it around her.
    He leaned down and kissed her softly on the mouth.
    “It’s not supposed to be like that,” he said.
    “I know.”
    He walked her into the bedroom and took a seat on the edge of her bed. So stern again, serious in his wet red T-shirt and jeans, his hands braced over his kneecaps as if he needed something to hang on to.
    He was beautiful.
    And now that she’d told him, she felt different. Not quite perfectly calm, because her heart was pounding way too fast, and she felt as if she were floating an inch or two outside her body. But more sure of herself.
    She wanted Tony for different reasons than she’d wanted Brian or Andy. Not because she expected him to rescue her or change her or fix her, and not because she had anything to prove.
    Because he made her hot. Because he was sexy. And maybe more than either of those, she wanted him because she liked him. The actual him.
    It was a good reason.
    He didn’t look like he agreed, though. He looked like she’d drawn him to the edge of an abyss, and he wasn’t sure he ought to go over it.
    “What are we doing, Amber?”
    She tried to lighten the mood. “I thought you planned to—to—”
    “To fuck you?”
    “Right.”
    “Say it.”
    There was that cocky smile again. That Crest gleam, with its dirty subtext.
    “To fuck me.”
    Lust fired up between her legs, just like that. Amazing, what those four little letters could do. She supposed she’d always known. Why else had she avoided swearing, once she’d given up on the whole notion of keeping her soul immaculate?
    But she hadn’t understood that the power cut more than one way. It could be sexy to talk like this. Liberating.
    “To fuck me,” she said again, and this time she watched that hard
k
light a fuse in his eyes. “I thought you planned to fuck me and then leave me a weeping mess.”
    “That’s the plan.”
    But his eyes were too kind, too warm. He wasn’t that sort of man. Not for her, anyway.
    He reached for her waist, his hand a clamp, stronger than her own grip could ever hope to be.
    He liked her. She thought maybe he liked her just as much as she liked him, and he didn’t know what to do about it. She didn’t know what to do about it, either, except to keep fumbling forward and see what happened.
    Maybe it wasn’t the right thing.
    They would find out together.
    She stepped closer and placed her palm flat against his chest. It rose with his deep inhale.
    His fingers tightened at the top of her thigh. When he spoke, the teasing tone was gone. “You sure you want this, Amber? With me? I don’t want to be the guy who finishes off the job of wrecking sex for you.”
    “You won’t.” She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, running her thumbs up his neck.
So tense
. “Do you—do you still want to do this?”
    His eyes dropped to the tuck in her towel. “If you’re sure.”
    “You did say you would teach me how to misbehave.” She lifted his hand to the center of her chest. “So teach me.”
    “I brought a condom up from the truck.”
    “I have some in the bathroom.”
    “All right, then.” He stroked his hand over her collarbone, then let it drop away. Rising, he grabbed a handful of shirt behind his head and pulled it off in one quick shucking