Though she didn’t need to.
His moans were high and desperate and much too loud, punctuated with the kind of praise she could have come over. “Good girl, get me off, take it, take my hot load,” he groaned, barely sensible of what he was saying but all the better for it. She would remember those words forever, in every fuck session she participated in from then on. Other guys might come and go, but nothing would ever be sweeter than this: Tate Sullivan saying the filthiest things, and turning them into bliss.
Chapter 17
She wanted to say something to him on the way back to her dorm. Something lighthearted, maybe, or at the very least grateful. But when she went to speak, nothing came out. Her lungs were suddenly full of sawdust and simply couldn’t supply the necessary air. She could barely even lift her feet to take the next step, in truth. Every part of her was limp and weak, from her noodle arms to her rubbery legs.
And as for her face…
She knew how it looked. She made an effort to keep her expression neutral, but failed on every conceivable level. Her mouth just refused to close. The distraught frown wouldn’t leave her face. All her features were set to shell-shocked, and nothing could change that.
It was the only possible response to everything he had done.
And all the things he had said.
Since the stairwell, she thought.
But it only made her dazed expression worse. By the time they got to her door she felt as though she’d just staggered through the rubble of a postapocalyptic wasteland. Her hair was sticking up on one side where she’d worried at it. Her eyes seemed to be staring far too intently at every single thing about him. And when she finally got words out, they were not the ones she had intended.
Play it cool, her mind insisted.
But her mouth had her other ideas.
“Do you want to come inside?”
Of course she immediately realized her mistake. His answering expression said it all. A grin stuttered across his face, followed by an excruciatingly disbelieving laugh. It was the one he used to aim at her when she tried to do something outside her wheelhouse—something cool maybe—and it made her flush all over just like it had then. It made her want to correct him: no, I didn’t mean for more sex.
Only it was too late to clarify. Much too late.
“I would love to, but I really got to get some sleep.”
“Oh right, yeah, absolutely.”
“My wake up call’s, like, six thirty.”
“No, you don’t have to explain, it’s cool.”
She tried to laugh like he had as she turned to put her key in the lock, but it didn’t come out right. Her voice was too hollow, her amusement too tinged with that raw, red embarrassment. And it got worse the longer he just stood there. Why was he just standing there? He was supposed to go now.
Instead, he seemed to have gotten closer.
His voice seemed to have dipped lower.
“So that’s just it, huh? You’re going in. Goodbye.”
“Well, yeah, you just…said…You have to go.”
“Man, I can see I’m gonna have to give you as much of an education in how to be in a relationship as I am in all the crazy sex stuff. But that’s cool. That’s okay. We can start here.”
“Start where?”
She looked up at him as she asked, expecting to see that laughter in his eyes. The faint smile on his lips.
And that was when he kissed her. Right in the middle of those lingering memories and still-present doubts, right when she was at her most vulnerable. He just leaned right down and took her face in his two hands, lips pressing so sweetly to hers you would never know what they’d just done. It was almost chaste, that kiss. It was the kind of thing two teenage sweethearts might try at first.
But that made the loveliest sense to her.
They were teenage sweethearts.
They just hadn’t known it at the time.
They hadn’t understood what this would be like: all bright and burning and brilliant. He barely did anything beyond that one tender push of his mouth against hers, yet somehow it set her heart pounding in her teeth. Her lips were tingling in all the places where he made contact, and they continued to long after he had pulled away. As though he had tattooed her there with his feelings, she thought, then had to fight to stop herself saying something stupid and gushing and amazed.
Not that it would have mattered if she had. His first word was not a word at all.
“Whoa.”
“Yeah.”
“That…”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you…feel that?”
“I felt that.”
He seemed to sag when she admitted it.
With relief, she thought, then wanted to cry.
Doubly so, when he spoke again.
“I think maybe I changed my mind about coming in.”
“That’s probably for the best. I need you to carry me the three feet to my bed.”