and round. She watches me back, wetting her lips. “Let’s just… get lost.”
This isn’t a fingerbang in the front seat of my Jeep. It isn’t head in the Alumni house. It isn’t eating her out, quick and dirty in the Stairway. It isn’t even that night in her room, when I went up her skirt.
This is both of us, here, alone, practically naked.
Absolutely nothing is stopping us.
I exhale slowly, lifting a hand to gently graze the side of her breast. It’s warm and just as soft as it looks, and I instantly just… know.
I know I can take it.
“We don’t have to—I mean, we can wait,” I say, thumb brushing across her nipple. “There’s nothing wrong with taking things slow.”
She shudders in a breath, blinking slowly. “We did take it slow,” she whispers, catching my wrist before I can pull it away. Her blue eyes bore into mine. “I did wait.”
My body says to go for it, and despite having just jerked off, my cock’s already hard again, ready, two seconds from exploding. My brain is a jumbled mush. My eyes won’t stop staring at her tits. At her flat stomach. Then down at the scar.
Guilt.
It washes over me. Always. I can’t shake it. I can’t get away from it.
I take a step back, but she moves with me, eyes imploring. “Hey, I want this. I want you.”
God, I want her too.
“Then take me.”
Did I say that out loud? Fuck. “I just need to—” I need to think. I need to make sure I’m doing this right. I need to consult the risk management plan.
Some of that spark in her eyes dims. “Unless you don’t want to?”
“No, I do,” I burst, taking her face in my hands. I can feel the heat of her cheeks beneath the pads of my thumbs. “So badly, you have no idea. I just thought I’d have more time to plan.”
Her eyebrows knit together. “Plan what?”
“How to do this without hurting you.”
“Reyn,” she says, mouth quirking into a grin. “It’s totally fine. I talked to Afton, Elana, and Georgia about it. They all say it hurts, but only a little and not for long. Come on, you know I’m not scared of a little pain.”
“No, I don’t mean that.” I shake my head. “Obviously that’ll hurt, and that… that sucks.” I get lost in this little brain-loop of awareness that, yes. I’m going to hurt her. With my dick. It’s not a good feeling to have. “But mostly, I meant…” My eyes drop to her leg. “Sex is physical, and I wasn’t sure if—”
“Oh,” she cuts me off, blue eyes full of realization.
I rush to assure her, “Not that I think you can’t do it or handle it. But if there’s a way I can make it easier or better, then I wanted to know. Before.”
There’s a moment of pensive silence, and I worry that I’ve pissed her off. There are few things Vandy hates more than being babied. Luckily, she just looks at me and says, “It’s not like I have any experience, but I don’t think that’s going to be a problem. We can just work it out, right? Together.”
This is the scariest thing about it. The trust. She has this faith in me to make it good—to make it worth it. This girl—the girl I love and want and obsess over constantly—is offering to do the one thing I think about three times a second, and here I am, scared shitless. Eventually, she’s going to realize that I’m not good enough.
I really don’t want that moment to be now.
“Yeah,” I say, mustering a confidence I don’t feel. “We’ll work it out.”
The skin over her ribs is warm and smooth when my fingertips drag over it, mouth taking hers in a slow, long kiss. She winds her arms around my neck and her tits press into my chest. It takes my breath away, this heavy feeling swelling in my throat. It’s full of things I already know I won’t say. That I love her. That I’d die for her. That being with her like this is better than stealing. It’s better than drugs. It’s better than anything.
I try to tell her with my kiss, with the way my hand cups her tit in my palm, gentle and testing. I swallow the sound she makes and wrap an arm around her waist, steadying her as I move us toward the bed.
I glide my hands down her back, over the curve of her ass, and