“Hey, Pete,” she whispers.
“Yeah?” I whisper back.
“I want to kiss you again tomorrow,” she says quietly. She giggles, and it shakes my chest. That’s the most beautiful sound I have ever heard.
I want to kiss her again tomorrow, too. A lot.
###
In my dream, I’m running toward the sound of Reagan’s voice. I can hear her clearly, but I can’t see her. I know it’s a dream, and dreams can be f**ked up, so I’m not panicking. But she is. She’s clearly upset, and I look for her everywhere in the mist. I can’t find her. Suddenly, I’m jerked from my dream and find myself lying beside Reagan in the barn where we fell asleep. She’s making choked little cries from the back of her throat. I look down at her. She’s the one dreaming. Her eyes are squeezed shut and she has curled herself into a ball. When we fell asleep, she was draped across me. When did she scoot away?
“Reagan,” I coo softly. She flinches and bats at my hand. She’s still dreaming, and I don’t know how to pull her out of it. “Reagan,” I say with more force. Her eyes blink open as she slowly wakes. She bats her lashes at me as I look down into her face. She’s breathing hard, but she quickly calms.
“I was dreaming,” she says. She looks around and settles back against the blanket, her body softening.
“Bad dream?” I ask.
She nods. I roll onto my side and rest my head in my hand so I can look down at her. She scoots closer to me, and I drape my arm around her waist. “Sorry,” she murmurs.
I tug her waist, pulling her to me. “Don’t be,” I say.
“I used to take medication to help with the dreams, but they made my head foggy so I stopped them.” She looks up at me, her green eyes blinking slowly. “Sometimes I don’t sleep well.”
I brush her hair back from her face. “You dream about what happened that night?” I ask.
“Sometimes.” She looks away and avoids my gaze. She doesn’t want to talk about it, apparently.
I want to ask questions, but I don’t want to bring it all back up for her if she has pushed it from the forefront of her mind. “Do you relive it in your dreams?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “Not the rape, specifically,” she says. She says it like it’s such a common word. My gut clenches. “I dream more about the feelings. Regret, mainly.”
“What do you regret?” I ask.
She looks up at me, almost like she’s seeking a connection with me, and I like it. I f**king love it. “I regret going to that party,” she says. “I should have been in my dorm studying.”
“Did you know him?” I ask. “Or was he a stranger?”
“I had never met him. That’s why I feel so stupid over it. I never should have been alone with him in the bathroom. Alone with a man I didn’t know.” She heaves a sigh. “One minute he’s kissing me, and then I’m calling out to stop because it just doesn’t feel right. But he wouldn’t.”
She shivers, and I want to draw her inside me and protect her. A tear slips from the corner of her eye and tracks down her temple.
She sniffs. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cry on you.” She chuckles, but it’s a watery sound.
“You came while riding my knee, princess,” I say quietly. “I think you can cry on me, too.”
Her face colors, but she smiles. She whispers, “I’ve never done that before.”
“No one has ever made you come?” I ask. I know the answer to this, but I want to hear her say it. I don’t know why. I just need it. I slide my leg across her thighs and put some of my weight on her, but she doesn’t seem to mind. I really want to open her dress so I can lay my hand on her belly. But I settle for this moment, instead.
She shakes her head.
I run my finger down her nose. “You never did that yourself?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No.” She looks into my eyes. “Thank you,” she says.
“Anytime, princess,” I say with a laugh. “I am at your disposal.”
“You’re such a giver,” she taunts, shoving my shoulder.
“I aim to serve.” I laugh. God, she makes me feel so light and free. “I think I could have some very real feelings for you,” I blurt out. I want to bite the words back as soon as I say them.
“Good,” she says, and she smiles as she rolls into my chest and wraps her arm around me. She buries her face in my shirt. I think she might be embarrassed.
“I pour my heart out and all you can say is good?” I jostle her in my arms.
“Mmm hmm,” she hums. I feel her lips against my shirt, her breath warming the fabric. She laughs. “You can’t really call that pouring your heart out, Pete.” She mocks my tone, making her voice deep. “I think I might have some very real feelings for you.” She laughs, and damn it all, it’s such a pretty sound that she can’t annoy me with it.
She lifts the tail of my shirt, and her fingers slide up my stomach. I cover her hand with mine to stop her exploration. I’m too turned on. I don’t think my erection ever eased from before, and it’s pressing hard against my zipper now.
“Why can’t I touch you?” she whispers.
“Because I’m too turned on right now,” I whisper back.
She sits back so she can look up at my face. “What does that even mean?”
I press my lips to her forehead, lingering there. “It means I’m a guy. And the wind is blowing.”
Her eyebrows draw together. “What?”
I laugh. “Nothing.” But now I can’t stop chuckling. She slaps my chest.
“It’s not funny unless more than one person is laughing.” She gets quiet for a minute, and then she says, “How many women have you slept with?”
I close my eyes and wince. “I stopped counting them a long time ago. When I ran out of fingers.”
“More than ten?” Her voice is small.
“Yeah,” I grunt. I don’t like my own answers so I can’t expect her to like them.
“More than your fingers and toes?” she asks.
“Probably,” I breathe out. “Hell, I don’t know.”
“Do you know their names?” She sits up in front of me and crosses her legs criss-cross-applesauce style. She tugs her dress down to cover her knees.
I sit up, too, so I can face her. I lay my hand on her knee and draw circles on it with my thumb. “Some of them.” I hold up one finger when she starts to ask me something else. “But there hasn’t been anyone in a really long time. Since before I got locked up.” I squint at her. “Does that count for anything?”
Her face softens, and she blows out a breath. “I wasn’t judging you, Pete. Just trying to get to get to know you.”
I nod, unable to look her in the eye. “Have you ever been in love?” she asks. She’s smiling at me, though, and this question seems more benign than the last.
Not until now. But I don’t say that, because if I do, I’ll scare her with the depth of my feelings. “Maybe,” I hedge.
“What does that mean?” she asks. “Maybe?” She narrows her eyes.
“I don’t know,” I say. I feel things for her that I have never felt for anyone. Is it love? I just don’t know. It’s too new to tell. I need some time to explore it before I have to explain it. “What about you?” I ask. “Have you ever been in love?”
She shakes her head. “No.” She grins.
“What?” I ask. I scrub at my nose. “Do I have a booger?”
She laughs. “No,” and she brushes my hand down. “I have never been in love.” Her green eyes dart around for a second and then land on me. “Would you know love if you found it?” she asks.
I tilt my head from side to side as if I’m weighing the heaviness of her words. “I think I would.”
She smiles. “Can I keep asking questions or am I getting on your nerves?” she asks.
“Ask me anything.” Honestly, I’ve been locked up for a really long time. Being in jail is lonely, and I need a connection. I want that connection with her. And only her. “But I get to ask you questions, too.”
“That’s fair,” she says. She’s thinking hard about her next question. “Our first kiss,” she whispers. “It was epic.”
“Yeah, it was,” I agree.
“Is it always that epic? With every girl you have been with?”
I scratch the back of my head. “Most girls don’t have an orgasm when I kiss them.” I laugh. “Is that what you want to know?”
She shakes her head. “No. I mean…” Her face colors. “I know it wasn’t epic for you, but it was pretty damn epic for me.”
I lean close and press my lips to hers because I just have to. “I know. I almost came in my pants just watching you.” I kiss her again, and she hums against my mouth. It’s a happy sound. But then she covers her face when I look her in the eye.
“You talk about it like it’s nothing.” She’s embarrassed.
I tip her chin up. “What I’ve done in the past with other girls was nothing. What we did tonight? That was far from nothing.” I tweak her nose because I’m about to rock my own world, and I want to ease the blow if she rejects me. “I have real feelings for you, Reagan,” I say quietly. “I can’t explain them. And I don’t want to. But don’t try to push what happened between us tonight off as common. Because it wasn’t. It was big. And I want to keep doing it. I want to learn all about you and have you learn all about me. I want you to meet my family. I want to go on a date with you.” I look around. “This place is nice, but…seriously?”
She laughs. “You want me to meet your family?” she asks.
“If you think you can stand it. There are five of us. All men.”
“I’m not afraid of men in general,” she explains.
“Just the ones that touch you.” I run my crooked finger along her cheekbone, and she turns into my hand to kiss my palm.
“Your brothers look like you,” she says.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“I saw them when you got out of prison,” she says quietly.
“You were there?”
She nods. “My dad made me sit in the truck while he talked to you about camp.” She draws her lower lip between her teeth and bites down like she’s anxious about my response. “Sorry. I should have told you sooner.” She groans. “I kind of asked for you to be here. So I could see you.”
“I’m glad you did.” Never been happier about anything.
“Your brothers all have tattoos, too,” she says. She looks at the tattoo on my arm that’s for my mom. She picks up my hand and traces the tats that go up my forearm to my sleeve. “I want to look at all of them so I can find out what makes you tick.” She draws a circle around the American flag.
“That one’s for my buddy who died in Afghanistan.”