Talking Sense by Serenity Woods Page A

The way you were talking, I half-expected you to be all militaristic and bark orders all the time, but you hardly said anything.”
    She snorted. “Like you needed telling. You seemed to know perfectly well how to press my buttons.”
    They studied each other, thinking about that. They’d fitted together well, he thought. She was hardly asking for the moon. Just a guy who’d spend time on her, someone who cared about her and wanted to please her. Someone who…
    Don’t go there.
    She laid her cheek on his ribs. “I’m falling asleep.”
    “One last thing. You told me you’d let me know. Oral orgasm or penetrative orgasm?”
    She chuckled. “Too close to call. All three were pretty spectacular. Goodnight, Colm. My sexy Celt.”
    “Sweet dreams, Mia. My sexy princess.”
    She fell asleep quickly, her breathing deepening and slowing, but Colm lay there a while longer, playing with her hair and thinking about the look on her face as she’d said, You seemed to know perfectly well how to press my buttons.

Chapter Thirteen
    “Oh. My. God,” Freya said. “Tell us everything .”
    Mia sighed. She knew she shouldn’t have admitted she’d slept with Colm. “I’m certainly not going to tell you everything,” she said wryly. “A girl has to have some secrets.”
    She sat at her computer, on a conference call via Skype with Grace in her bedroom and Freya somewhere in Bogotá. They’d talked for a while about Freya’s adventures, but now for some reason her two friends seemed to think it necessary that they all discuss Mia’s love life.
    “No secrets between besties,” Grace said. “Come on, tell us.”
    “Jeez, stop with the third degree.”
    “We want the gory details,” Freya said, her voice coming through with a few seconds’ delay. “You’re not getting away with it, Mia. When I first went with Nate, you demanded to know everything.”
    Mia scratched her head. It was true—in the past they’d always talked about their relationships. They found it comforting, because it was so easy to think you were the only person in the world who had a particular problem, and it was always reassuring to know someone else felt the same. Plus, when you weren’t getting any, it was kind of nice to enjoy it vicariously.
    However, for some reason she didn’t want to go into detail about what had happened with Colm. It felt…private. Special.
    Uh-oh. Even she knew that was a worry.
    “The very fact that you’re not talking tells me something spectacular happened,” Freya said.
    “It wasn’t spectacular,” Mia lied. “Very run-of-the-mill. I fell asleep halfway through.”
    “She’s lying,” Freya said.
    “Oh, I know.” Grace’s voice was determined. “Come on, spill the beans. What was he like? He’s so clumsy. Did he fall off the bed and…you know, miss the target occasionally?”
    “Good grief, ouch! God, no. He was surprisingly un-clumsy. No target-missing at all.” Quite the opposite , she thought, remembering the way the headboard had banged against the wall.
    “How did he approach the subject?” Grace asked. “Did you just jump on him? Tell me you didn’t just jump on him.”
    “No,” Mia said, exasperated. “Give me some credit.”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
    “For fuck’s sake… I had a bad back. He invaded my personal privacy, forced me at gunshot to take two pills and then made me take off my clothes and manhandled me.”
    “Nice,” Freya said. “About time someone did. Make you take pills, that is, not strip.”
    Mia realised she wasn’t going to get away with keeping it secret and admitted, “The stripping was voluntary. Kind of. With cards.”
    “Poker?” Freya queried.
    “It sounds like he did,” Grace said.
    Freya snorted. Mia sighed. “Don’t be rude. It was whist, actually, but same outcome.”
    “Ooh,” Grace said. “Nice idea.” She spoke to someone over her shoulder before she came back. “Ash wants to know if you had a good hand.”
    “Ash!”