Mark burst out laughing.
“Ugh! Stop!” I cried. I hid my face in my hands.
“I’m sorry, Cadence,” he replied, still chucking. “Man, the stuff that comes out of your mouth.” He peeled away my hands. “I wasn’t gonna eat you out today. We haven’t even kissed, if you remember. And where is this coming from?”
I huffed. “My stupid faux friend.”
“Faux friend?”
“Avery,” I clarified, and looked at Mark.
He chuckled. “Ah, yes. Avery. I’m very glad I don’t have her in any of my classes.”
I smiled.
“What did she say to you?”
“Nothing.”
“Did she scare you about . . . that?” he asked.
“Why would I be scared?” I asked indignantly.
“I don’t know.”
“What? You think no one’s ever done that to me?”
“I don’t know.”
No one ever had done that to me. But I didn’t want him to know it. He was, after all, twenty-eight. I’m sure he had all kinds of experience with oral sex. I felt like a little na?ve fool.
“Cadence?” Mark asked gently. “I would never do something you didn’t want me to. You know that, right?”
I nodded.
“Now, I’m gonna make you uncomfortable for just a second,” he said. “You cool with that?”
“I guess,” I replied, feeling my heartbeat increase. I didn’t know what he planned to say. Or do.
“I would never do something you didn’t want me to, but I hope in the future, you let me go down on you,” he said.
I wanted to die.
He cupped my face and forced me to look at him.
“Because I really really wanna eat you out.” He shrugged and grinned. “Eventually.”
He arched an eyebrow, waiting for my response. God, he was so freaking hot! Suddenly I was no longer embarrassed by his words. I just wanted to stare at his features. His hair was especially crazy today. And I wanted my hands in it. I wanted to pull on it. And his eyes. Oh, his eyes! Like fogged glass. A hazy film of smoke, letting me in just enough, but not all the way. And I wanted in all the way.
“Okay,” I said.
He chuckled. “May I kiss you?”
“Okay,” I said automatically.
“Are you sure?”
“Okay.”
“Cadence? That’s not even a response to what I just asked.”
“I think I’m having a heart attack.”
“Well then I better hurry up and kiss you,” he joked.
“Mr. Connelly! I’m scared!” I cried.
Mark sighed. “Oh, Cadence.”
“I mean Mark. Mark, Mark, Mark.” I shook my head. “I think I should go.”
“Do you really wanna go?”
“No.”
“Then why would you say that?” he asked.
“Because I feel like an idiot! All I can think about is oral sex, and I’ve never done it or had it done to me, and I haven’t really done anything even though I’ve wanted to, and now I’ve got to worry about everything that goes into it, including having my hair ripped out of my body!” I took a deep breath.
Mark was silent for a moment.
“Cadence?”
“What?” I barked.
“I just wanna kiss you.”
I sighed.
“And I’m pretty sure you’ve already done that,” he said.
“I have,” I replied. “Lots of times.”
Mark’s lips curled into a wry grin. He placed his hand behind my head, pulling me towards his face. I didn’t resist, though I thought for a split second that I would go to hell for kissing my math teacher. And at the first contact of lips on lips, I felt an explosion deep in my heart. “You’re kissing an angel!” it screamed, and I remembered thinking back to the first time I saw Mark on the side of the highway. He was an angel, and I never thought the act of kissing could be anything close to spiritual. But it was.
He drew my bottom lip into his mouth, sucking tenderly, causing me to squirm on his lap. He grunted, and I didn’t realize until I was driving home later what my squirming bottom must have been doing to him the entire time we kissed.
I was inexperienced in many areas, but kissing wasn’t one of them. I drew back a fraction and ran my tongue teasingly over his bottom lip, licking him like a hungry kitty. I heard a rumble deep in his throat as he crushed his lips to mine. He forced my mouth open with his tongue, finding mine, playing with it until I moaned.
“Sit on me,” he said into my mouth.
“I am sitting on you,” I replied.
“Jesus Christ, Cadence,” he said, exasperated, and pulled on my thighs until they were spread, straddling his hips.
“Ohhh, you mean like this?” I asked playfully, moving my hips back and forth on him ever so slightly. It felt natural, and I also felt guilty for doing it because I knew I didn’t want to take our make-out session any further.
His hands went directly to my ass, squeezing me and pushing me down on him. He kissed me again, nibbling and sucking on my lips until they tingled. I pulled back.
“I’m afraid to do any more than this.”
“We won’t. I promise.”
The relief washed over me like a gentle, rolling wave.
“It’s just, I know you don’t wanna wait forever. Since you’ve done it before. But I’m not ready.”
“I’m not ready either,” Mark replied.
“Stop trying to make me feel better.”
“I’m not. I’m telling you the truth. I don’t wanna do anything else.”
My brain said, “Absolutely not,” but my mouth didn’t listen.
“Are you manipulating me to get what you want?” I asked.
Mark rolled his eyes. “If you’re asking me that, then you know I can’t be.”
“I don’t understand why you like me. And don’t say it’s because of my goodness. That just makes me wanna barf.”
Mark chuckled. “Why can’t I be attracted to your goodness?”
“Because it’s not enough!”
“You want me to list all the reasons I’ve fallen for you?”
“Yeah.”
“Come on, Cadence. Seriously?”
“Dead serious.”
“You don’t want me to tell you over time?”
“Hell no. I wanna hear every single one of them right now!” I said.
“Fine. But I was gonna wait to tell you when I had all my songs in order,” Mark said.
“Your songs?”
“Yeah. My songs. It’s my ongoing soundtrack for my life. And don’t laugh,” he said, eyeing me sternly.
My face broke out in a grin.