Need You Tonight by Roni Loren Page B

on.”
    He grinned. “Are you going to convict me on a technicality?”
    “Totally.”
    He sighed. “Tough jury. Well, I have handcuffs in the car. Let me finish cleaning
     up and then you can take me in.”
    She laughed. “Somehow I don’t think you’re kidding about having handcuffs.”
    He sent her a sly grin but went back to rinsing off the last of the dishes. Actually,
     he didn’t have any in the car, but at home . . . At home he had enough restraints
     to bind her in a hundred ways and never repeat a method. “A gentleman never reveals
     his secrets.”
    She went quiet for a while after that, and he began to regret the off-the-cuff comment.
     The girl had just gotten out of a marriage where her husband was keeping the biggest
     secret of all, and here he was joking about secrets.
    He wiped his hands on a towel and turned to her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean, with your
     husband—”
    “Oh, no.” She shook her head, cutting off his apology. “You’re fine. Truly, I wasn’t
     even thinking about the situation with my ex. Just about our agreement for total honesty.”
    Total honesty. Like not even giving her his real first name or the scope of his job.
     He was doing stellar on that all around. But she was looking so pensive that he couldn’t
     help but walk over to her. He put his hands on her arms, rubbing the chill bumps there.
     “What’s on your mind?”
    Her gaze slid to the right and down as if there was something eminently more interesting
     on the floor. “I’m trying to fight the urge to ask you a supremely embarrassing question,
     but one that I need an honest answer to.”
    Uh-oh. That sounded like a no-win trap if ever there was one. But what was he supposed
     to say to that? “Well, since you’ve already declared that we’re not going to see each
     other after tonight, I’d say you probably have nothing to lose by asking.”
    She took a deep breath, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip, and her gaze still
     locked on anything but him. “When I caught my husband cheating. He told me it was
     partly my fault, which I know is bullshit.”
    “Total bullshit,” Kade agreed.
    “But he said I was boring in bed,” she rushed on. “And I can’t help but wonder if
     maybe—”
    “That fucker.”
    Her attention snapped upward, surprise in her eyes.
    He cupped her face in his hands. “Baby, I don’t know much about you. I don’t know
     your last name or what you do for a living. I don’t know if you take cream in your
     coffee or if you prefer tea. But I can tell you one thing for sure. There is nothing
boring
about you. Tonight was amazing.
You
were amazing. And if that idiot ex-husband of yours didn’t know what to do with a
     gorgeous woman and all that passion you have brewing right beneath the surface, then
     that’s on him.”
    All the tension sagged out of her, and she closed her eyes, nodding in his hands.
     “Thank you.”
    The soft response and her obvious relief nearly undid him. What kind of asshole made
     a vibrant woman like this doubt herself? He half wished her ex was here right now.
     Kade would let the guy watch as Kade took Contessa right in front of him, let him
     watch how glorious she was when given pleasure by a man who knew what he was doing.
    “Don’t give his words another thought,” he said, kissing her forehead and wishing
     he could swipe the memory from her mind with the gesture.
    “I know I shouldn’t, but it’s hard not to let doubt creep in. When you approached
     me tonight, I almost chickened out because I thought I might embarrass myself. I’m
     not that experienced. I married him so young and—”
    “Contessa,” he said, frustration edging his words. “Stop.”
    She blinked up at him, apparently taken aback at his change in tone.
    He lowered his hands from her face, fighting the sudden urge to turn her over his
     knee and spank her for even giving that jerk another second of thought. “Stop doubting
     yourself. Inexperience does not