pat him reassuringly, but then she remembered that he was shirtless and she was desperate for him. She lowered her hand. “If I’d pushed you even slightly, or hadn’t kissed you back, or been stiff or uncertain, you would’ve stopped. Wouldn’t you?”
“Of course I would.”
“But I grabbed you and stuck my tongue down your throat instead. We’re good.”
He exhaled. “Okay. If you’re sure. You can be mad at me, if you want.”
"Zach.”
“Okay, yeah.” She heard the smile in his voice, and he was back to his usual devil-may-care self. “So. Boundaries, everybody’s favourite thing. Let’s talk.”
She supposed it was about time, wasn’t it? She hadn’t even thought about this stuff, but of course he’d have his shit together. “You’re the one who’s helping me, which makes you the potentially vulnerable party.” When he snorted, she pursed her lips and forged on. “You go first.”
She felt him shift, saw mountains move in the dark, and imagined him shrugging those massive shoulders. “We already hold hands and shit like that, right?”
“Right.” She fidgeted beneath the blankets. Wondered what would happen if she did something mortifying while they slept, like hunting down his body heat and curling around him the way she sometimes curled around Duke.
"Then there’s kissing,” Zach said, all studious and distant. If he’d put on his glasses and started lecturing her on the etymology of the word, she wouldn’t have been surprised. “Did you mind what we did tonight? I mean, is it something we could do again, or would you rather not?” He spoke carefully, like each word had sharp edges he needed to keep an eye on. She wondered if he was worried that she’d liked it a little too much.
She should take kissing off the table, but she was weak, so she said, “We can do it again if necessary.”
“You sure?”
“I am.”
“Then we need to do something about this wall.”
She faltered, blinking through the darkness. “Uh… what wall?”
“The imaginary but very sturdy wall you put between us the minute we left the dining hall.” He sounded faintly amused, mildly exasperated, and beneath it all, concerned. “You’re freaking out, right? You don’t need to. It was just—”
“I know,” she interrupted, because she couldn’t bear to hear him say it out loud. It was just pretend.
There was a pause. Then, quietly, he asked, “Where are you?”
“What?”
His meaning sank in just as his warm, rough hand came to rest tentatively on her shoulder. He skated his fingertips down her arm, caught her wrist, and pulled her hand toward his face. Then, without warning, she felt his teeth sink gently into the meat of her palm. She sucked in a breath and pressed her knees together while the bite tingled its way through her body, heading directly to her nipples. Teasing, tightening, torturing.
She choked out, “What are you doing?”
“You’re all stiff like you think I’m gonna bite. So, I bit. Now relax.”
Was her breathing too fast? Was her heartbeat too loud? Could he tell her clit was already aching, her pulse thrumming hard between her thighs? She wasn’t sure. She squeaked something unintelligible and tried to seem unaffected.
He laced their hands together and murmured, “See? This is fine. Same as always.”
Yeah. As always, I want to jump you.
But there was something new, too: a burning desire to curl up inside him and make all that sweet strength her home.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Okay,” she lied.
He drew her closer. She might as well have been a spare pillow, for all the effort he put into it: just a few gentle pulls and they were a breath apart, his arm around her waist.
He kissed her knuckles in the dark and spoke with iron in his voice. “Nothing is going to change between us. This weekend will not fuck anything up.”
How ironic. She’d just been thinking that everything had to change and this weekend would fuck them up.
“We’re gonna be the way we’ve always been,” he said, like it was an incantation or an order to the universe. “Nothing’s awkward,” he told her. He was telling someone, anyway. “We’re not awkward. Are we?”
“No,” she said quickly. “No, Zach. We’re perfect.” It was mostly true. He was perfect, anyway. She wished she could tell him so.
“Then let’s go to sleep.”
She shouldn’t have been able to obey. But maybe his words really were a spell, and maybe they sank into her skin, because all of a sudden, this situation didn’t feel awkward at all. Lying beside him, touching him, felt… good.