My Life as a Holiday Album (My Life as an Album #5) - L.J. Evans Page 0,97

all the pieces together. She was trying to tell me something that was obviously embarrassing her, but I felt like I was missing the corner piece to the puzzle.

I frowned. “I must be an imbecile. I still don’t get it.”

She breathed out a heavy breath, as if it were costing her more than she wanted to give to say any of the words. “I wasn’t excited by any of them. You know…turned on. Honestly, most of the time, they repulsed me almost as much as Phil did tonight. I just didn’t get what all the hubbub was about.”

Holy crap. It hit me hard in the chest. She was telling me she’d never gotten hot and heavy with a guy. She was probably telling me she’d never had sex. She was in her junior year of college, and maybe it shouldn’t have been, but it was rare to find someone who hadn’t had sex by then. Maybe if more people waited to sleep with a partner, there would be fewer breakups. In my experience, sex messed with your head and your heart. Often putting feelings there that were far from the truth, simply because of what the sex itself felt like. Glorious. Good. Almost perfect. But never quite perfect. Like you were always looking for the next high, and you thought the person you were with was the one to give it to you, to land you in that heavenly state.

I got up off the bed, moving so I was standing right in front of her.

“Ginny, are you telling me you’ve never slept with anyone?”

Ginny

SANTA TELL ME

“Let it snow, it's blasting now

But I won't get in the mood

I'm avoiding every mistletoe until I know

It's true love that he thinks of.”

Performed by Ariana Grande

Written by Grande / Kotecha / Salmanzadeh

My face was a flame of color. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know what had provoked me to state the truth to Cole. Probably because he was doing things to me and my body I wasn’t accustomed to. Feelings I’d never had were being brought to the surface. Like Snow White or Sleeping Beauty being slowly dragged awake.

But we hadn’t even kissed, so it wasn’t an apt analogy. What I did know was I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to know what it would feel like to put my lips on his. I wanted to know if I’d feel nothing again, like I had with every guy who’d ever put his lips to mine, or if I would feel more of the tingly energy surge I’d felt every time Cole and I collided.

He was so dang tall that looking up at him from my sitting position on the bed was enough to give me a crick in my neck. I stood, socked feet sinking into the mattress, and when I wobbled, his hand reached out to my waist, stabilizing me. Once I had stopped swaying, he didn’t remove his hand.

The heat of it seeped into Ty’s old jersey I was wearing. It seeped all the way through, leaving a mark just below my ribcage that I could feel getting warmer the longer it stayed there. It caused more delightful currents to coast over me.

“It’s ridiculous, right?” I lifted my chin and met his gaze. I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, I reminded myself. In my freshman year, I’d tried my damndest to get rid of my virginity. I’d wanted to give it away. But the guys I’d dated, a couple of football-player friends of Ty’s, a couple of guys in my classes, and even one of the older baristas at our favorite coffee shop had all made me want to gag when they’d touched me.

I’d thought it wasn’t meant to be. I thought my expectations from all my romance novels had been too high and that reality was just a bitter disappointment.

Then, in sauntered Cole, and I was feeling every delicious brush just like in the stories. I was feeling it all for someone who was going away. For someone there was a good chance I’d see rarely, if at all, in my life. But it gave me hope for the first time in ages. Because if there was one guy who could bring out these feelings, there certainly would be more. Maybe it just meant I was choosier than most.

“No, it’s not ridiculous.” His tone was deep and guttural, hardly words as much as grunts.

We stared at each other for a long moment before my eyes drifted down