I wish he was bare inside me.
We should talk about that. I’m ready. I trust him.
But baby steps. I laugh shakily as he sets me down and gets rid of the condom.
“Is that a sleep deprivation laugh?” he asks roughly as he wraps his arms around me from behind.
I shake my head. I don’t need any secrets from him. “I was just thinking maybe we should talk about going without condoms.”
He doesn’t move, but his heart is pounding. I can hear it. “Yeah?”
“I’m…I get the shot. And if you…”
“I’ll get tested. It’s been a while, but another test is a good thing.”
I nod. “And I was laughing because I was thinking it’s a weird order.”
“What is?”
I turn in his arms. “That I don’t have any problem suggesting we go bare, but I’ve been struggling with agreeing to…”
He smirks at me. “To…?”
“Tomorrow night is my last exam.” I press up on my toes and kiss his jaw, then lick down his strong, corded neck. “If you want to go out and celebrate with me…”
His Adam’s apple jumps against my lips. “Yeah?”
I grin. That was worth it. “Yeah.”
“You don’t have friends you’d rather go out with?”
I laugh. “You scared off my only friend.”
“I didn’t scare him off, I just asserted my claim.”
“And yet I’m not going out for drinks with anyone.”
“So I’m the last option for filling your social calendar.” He groans, so I bite the tendon between his neck and his shoulder. “Hey! Brat!”
“No whining. You want the date or not?”
“If we’re calling it a date, abso-f*ck
ing-lutely.”
— —
He picks me up from my exam and we head back to his place. He asks me how it went, and I launch into a too-long explanation of why I didn’t like the exam questions, but I think I gave the answers the professor was looking for. My answer lasts all the way back to his place—which is nice, and I try to steer the conversation to that, but he just grins at me and asks another question about my exam.
He’s been slowly unwinding from buttoned-up Scott as we’ve been talking. His tie came off—hot—and he unbuttoned his jacket—even hotter. Now he flicks open the top button of his dress shirt and I swear my panties get wet from that one simple action. “We can go out for drinks as soon as I get changed.”
“You wanna go to the campus bar?” I ask, although really, I just want to help him get changed, and by that, I mean get naked. And then I want to ride him like a rodeo bronco. It is my celebration, after all.
He makes a face. “No.”
I laugh. “Do you have a neighborhood bar around here?”
“Yeah.” He watches me watching him slide off his dress shirt. “Or we could get a bottle of tequila and a lime from the store and come back to my place. Or your place. Hell, we can call up your friends and invite them along.”
“Seriously, I told you last night. Corey was my only friend. Being on an accelerated program made that kind of weird, because I stopped taking classes with the people I started with, and everyone else had already formed friendships. I mean, I’m friendly with people…” I’m babbling. I shake my head. “Don’t worry about it.”
Scott looks like he’s torn between glowering and being sympathetic. He fails at the latter. Glower is in full effect. “We won’t call Corey.”
“He’ll be so disappointed,” I say, laughing as he roughly grabs my hips and slides our bodies together.
“I never wanted to get between you and a friend.” He’s serious about that, and I appreciate it.
I kiss his jaw. “I know. But if being reminded that I’m not interested steers him away, then maybe he wasn’t that close of a friend to begin with.”
“How the hell are you this mature? I still don’t have that kind of objectivity.”
“Yeah? What friends hurt you?”
Something flickers in his eyes, but I’ve learned that while I can ask that kind of question, and he’ll never shut me down…he doesn’t answer, either.
But it’s my last day of school for a few weeks—until summer school begins, although I’ll have some prep for that to do, because I’m finishing my senior project for double credit—and I don’t want to go all emo about him not sharing when I’ve pushed for this to be light between us.
So I don’t need to mess with feelings and secrets and heaviness. I’ve got a hot friend who wants to do tequila shots with me to celebrate my last exam of the spring. “Never mind. Bring it on, old man. Let’s go get some tequila and see just how hard you can celebrate.”
He grins at me, his white teeth glinting in the street light. “Famous last words, sweetness. Famous last words.”
— —
An hour later, we’ve got tequila and limes and salt—fancy salt that the fancy corner store in his fancy neighborhood sells for just this purpose.
And I’m a little drunk, obviously, because I’m adding fancy to every other word. Fancy that.