Turn Up the Heat by Serena Bell Page A

snake shedding its skin, to reveal his true self beneath.
    “Moss,” he said, when her fingers stroked over the velvet texture of his skin.
    “You love the woods.” She touched the trees and then the moss, and it was a contradiction, her fingertips gliding across smooth skin but her eyes and mind telling her that he was carved out of two different textures.
    “Yeah,” he said simply.
    The moss under the shed skin was so realistic that it made her want to peel back more, to see if he was like the forest floor all the way down.
    “I’ve never done this before,” he said.
    Startled, she propped herself up on an elbow.
    He frowned. “I don’t even really know what to call it. Do you? Have you done it before?”
    Her world seemed to yawn open, full of possibility, and she wanted to grab hold of something for fear of falling. They were going to put words to it; they were going to talk about it. They were going to give her some vocabulary to express what she had known about herself but not known what to do with. But at the same time, she didn’t feel completely safe. She felt afraid that he was leading up to telling her it had been fun this time, but that he didn’t want to do it again. Didn’t want to make a habit of it. That it was wrong for him, as it had been for Fallon. And she didn’t think she could stand that.
    So she made light of it. “You mean had sex? Nope, not a virgin.”
    But he wasn’t going to let her off the hook. “That kind of sex.”
    That kind.
She couldn’t read whether that was awe or disgust in his voice. Maybe he was holding it carefully neutral. They were feeling their way around each other.
    By this point in the proceedings, Fallon had long since withdrawn his limp self to the bathroom and was taking a shower while she lay in the bed and wondered whether it was possible to die of hurt and embarrassment.
    “I think,” she said carefully, “that most people would still say that was just sex.”
    “It wasn’t
just
anything,” he said. “It was fucking amazing.”
    Warmth rushed through her.
    “That was—okay, look, I don’t care what most people would say. Fine, I’ll say it. I’ve never held anyone’s hands like that. I’ve never grabbed someone’s head and pushed her into my lap. I’ve never thrust into someone’s mouth, and I’ve never fucked anyone that hard before.”
    Hearing him put it into words—she couldn’t even say what it did to her. It took her apart and put her back together again. There was the truth of it, and the way he was looking at her, it wasn’t a dirty truth he wanted to put up on a shelf somewhere. It was some part of his truth, too. And she had to, suddenly,
had to
hear him say it.
    “And you liked it?”
    “Liked it?” He groaned. “God. Lily. I fucking loved it. I haven’t come like that in—” He laughed. “Ever.”
    She laughed too, relief choking her.
    “Yes.” It was hard for her to force the word out. It felt like undressing in public. It felt like the one time she’d tried improv comedy. “I’ve done it before.”
    He nodded. Waited.
    “With my ex-boyfriend. Fallon.”
    She had never told anyone this story. All the rules said she shouldn’t tell it to Kincaid. She hardly knew Kincaid. They had a relationship that consisted of a few words exchanged here and there, and this physical connection that they hadn’t even managed to explain to themselves yet. And it wasn’t considered a good idea to tell your current lover tidbits from your amorous past.
    But Kincaid had asked. Kincaid was listening. Kincaid had just made her come so hard it had actually strained muscles in her face and neck. She had never wanted to talk about this before, but Kincaid made her want to talk about it.
    “Blame
Fifty Shades,
” she said. “There were a million news stories about all the women who had experimented with rope and duct tape—the hardware stores ran low—and I…I asked Fallon if we could…experiment.”
    His mouth tipped up.