“Are we going in? It’s hotter than hades out here, and I know you’re just dying to get me out of my clothes.” He waggles his eyebrows.
“You should be so lucky, Callan Cross.” I swat at him, but my cheeks flare bright red. I’m embarrassed. I do want to get him out of his clothes, but I don’t know how to make it happen. I’m not experienced. I don’t have a clue how to seduce a guy. When we’ve made out and touched each other back at Callan’s place, it’s felt secret, like it’s not really happening because it’s in the dark. When Callan’s made me come with his fingers, we’ve been clinging onto each other like we’re drowning, trying to stay afloat, and the miracle that’s occurred between us is sacred, something that shouldn’t be talked about.
When I made Callan come for the first time, I’d been so surprised that I’d rolled over and pretended to be asleep. It had been ridiculous. Callan had laughed softly under his breath and gotten up to fetch some toilet roll. He’d curled himself around me from behind and gently wiped his come from my stomach and my thighs, and then he’d kissed my shoulder and stroked my hair until I actually did fall asleep.
“Friday’ll be mad if I come home soaking wet, Callan.” I ditch my bag on the floor next to his, waiting to be talked into it, though. Callan sees right through me.
“You won’t be soaking wet. You’ll be dry by the time we get back. I promise.”
“I don’t think I should—”
Callan takes a step and covers my mouth with his, his hands laid heavily one on top of the other at the base of my spine. He kisses me deeply, more intense than when he was teasing me with his lips up on the street just now. If Mrs. Lowercroft had witnessed this, she probably would have called the police. His tongue darts into my mouth, stroking softly over my own tongue. Callan breathes out slowly, but it’s a shaky breath. He’s trying to take this easy, to be calm and collected, though his efforts don’t appear to be paying off.
His hands make their way underneath my shirt, fingers lightly skating over my back as they rise up, up, up between my shoulders. My stomach is bare. The warmed metal of Callan’s belt buckle presses up against my belly, and I have the strangest reaction to the contact. I shiver, the sensation beginning at my neck, traveling down my chest and rising up across my cheeks at the same time. Callan reaches up through the neck of my shirt and holds the base of my skull, his thumb rubbing lightly over my ear lobe again.
“You can stop me,” he says. “If you don’t want this, you can stop me. You know it’ll be okay, right?”
I look up at him and I know he’s speaking the truth. I hear kids talking at school; plenty of guys in our year are so determined to get laid that they bully their girlfriends into having sex. It’s never rape, but at the same time it’s hardly a mutual decision. I can’t imagine Callan trying to coerce me into anything. He’s strong, and he’s confident, and he has a smart mouth on him, but he’d never ask me to do anything I was uncomfortable with.
“I’m okay,” I tell him softly. “This is okay.”
“Good.” He smiles at me, flashing his teeth, and my heart somersaults. His smile is the thing of Hollywood legends. It’s not that his teeth are perfectly white and perfectly straight, because they’re not. It’s the way his full lips part and then press together, that crazy dimple forming in his cheek. It makes my own mouth ache, like I just ate something too sweet. When he smiles at me like this, I can tell he’s thinking nefarious things—he looks like he wants to devour me in the most sexual way. “I’m going to take my clothes off now. All of them. If you’re terrified by my Adonis-like physique, then I can definitely put them back on again. But I really would like to go skinny-dipping with you right now, bluebird. And I think you want to do the same. Am I wrong?”
I’m such a coward. It takes a full twenty seconds of me chewing on my lip before I nod. “Okay, fine. Skinny-dipping. I can do that.”
Callan smirks. His hands slide out of my shirt, and he begins to undress himself, starting with the belt buckle at his waist. He kicks his shoes off at the same time he pulls his t-shirt over his head. Callan sleeps in a t-shirt and shorts when I’m around, even though I know he hates it. This is literally the first time I’m seeing him without a shirt, and I’m shocked by how it makes me feel: dizzy, turned around, excited and scared all at once. Callan neatly folds his shirt next to his bag and then unbuttons his jeans, kicking out of them. His socks are next. He stands there with his fingers hooked beneath the waistband of his boxers, and he gives me that ruinous smile again.