My heart is a fucking monster in my chest, claws thrashing.
I pull back, on that razor-sharp edge of ecstasy and heartbreak, needing to know which way I’ll slide. “Are you . . . ?” I don’t even know how to end the sentence. I don’t want this to be a rash impulse of hers.
I’m settled here, in love with her; I couldn’t weather a drive-by.
“Just kiss me?” she whispers.
Her fingers tangle in the hair at the back of my head and she stretches, trailing kisses up my chin. Soft, hesitant kisses to convince me, to coax me some more. Once I force my eyes open, I see that she’s watching me nervously. As if I might say no. The vulnerability there . . . I am fucking done.
The beer bottle shatters near our feet but I need both hands to hold her face. With a groan I take her mouth, tilting her head, sliding my tongue inside and nearly roaring at the stroke of hers, the clench of her hands in my hair. I step forward, moving my hands down her neck, over her shoulders and down her sides, pulling her legs up and around my hips.
My thoughts are nothing but relief and need and need and love and fuck, I’m walking in circles, groaning rhythmically into her mouth.
I don’t know where to take her. I want her in my bed. In my room. I want her here against the wall.
“Your room,” she says, lips moving over my jaw. “Can we go to your room?”
I turn, stumbling down the hall while she kisses and sucks at my neck, her hands digging in my hair, hips grinding into me.
My feet move us to the bed and I lower her there, covering her body with mine and rocking into her, sliding my tongue over hers in the same, slow rhythm.
London scoots up my bed, pulling me up with her, and then rolls us so that she’s over me, her * pressed right over my cock as she stares down.
“I like your bedroom,” she says, breaking eye contact to briefly look around.
I follow the path her eyes take: over the bed, the dresser, to the window. It’s a basic room—nice, but unremarkable—and it doesn’t take long for our eyes to meet again. Is she thinking about how many other women have been in here? Is she wondering whether my sheets are clean?
I want to tell her everything, as if confessing—I’ve probably only had sex with two or three girls here, my sheets are clean, I’ve never slept with someone all night in this bed—but there’s no easy way to unload all of this, and what if she’s decided she doesn’t care anyway?
London reaches for the hem of her dress, now bunched at her hips, and lifts the soft cotton up and over her head. Her bra is white and plain, and she reaches back, unhooking it and letting it fall down her arms.
I watch, helpless, as she reaches for me, unbuttoning my dress shirt, helping me shrug out of it. I toss it aside and wrap my arms around her waist, looking up at her.
“I like you,” she whispers.
I exhale, hungry for her and leaning forward to kiss her neck.
The most fucked-up thought hijacks my brain: I don’t want to have sex right now. I want to kiss her. Just kiss. Just feel. I want to focus on the way she touches me, the sounds she makes when I touch her. We’ve charged through everything so far, and I want to go back and feel all the Firsts with her.
I glide my tongue across her collarbone, kissing over the rise of her breast and circling around her nipple. Flicking, sucking—she has a perfect body, perfect skin.
In my hair, her fingers grow tight and restless. Her back arches, pushing her chest closer to my face, hips circling, legs seeking a way to wrap around me.
“I’m sensitive,” she gasps. “I like that.”
I turn my eyes to her, using them to smile as I pull her nipple into my mouth. She watches it come out wet from my tongue, eyes heavy.
“I can tell,” I say.
She was so controlled before, even in the shower when I felt at the time like I got all of her. Here, she’s exposed and defenseless, looking at me with eager eyes and—
“Luke.”
Her voice breaks on the single syllable and she just lets it hang there as she closes her eyes. I don’t really need her to say any more because the fear is written all over her face.
Don’t hurt me.
A spike of pain wedges between my ribs, and I sit up straighter, kissing her slow, and deep. “Hey,” I whisper, repeating it again when she doesn’t open her eyes. “Hey.”
Finally, she looks down at me.
“There isn’t anyone else.”
Her eyes flicker back and forth between mine before she nods, cupping my face and kissing me—so sweet, not deep, just a slide of her mouth over mine.
“Here’s where you tell me you’re not seeing anyone else, either,” I mumble against her lips, and she giggles.
But her eyes are serious when she pulls back. “I’m not seeing anyone else.”
“Good.”
“You realize how this sounds?” she asks, looking back and forth between my eyes again. “You’re saying that you want to be in a relationship with me?”
“I believe I’ve made that abundantly clear.”