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 pussy 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.”
London stretches over me, catlike, and kisses me once before asking, “Where do you keep your condoms?”
Running my thumb across her lips, I say, “Bedside table.” I tilt my head to show her which side I mean, adding, “But I don’t want to do that yet.”
She thinks I’m kidding, and goes to lightly smack my chest, but I catch her hand. “No, I’m serious.”
“We’ve had sex before, you nerd.”
“It was different.” I reconsider. “This is different.”
Nodding slowly, London tries to hide her confusion, and fails, finally admitting, “I want you. I mean, you.”
“I do, too,” I assure her. “God. Trust me.” I close my eyes, swallow, and steady my thoughts before I look at her again. “But I’m also pretty sure I love you,” I say, and she stops breathing. “And I really, really don’t want to fuck this up.”
Her mouth moves for a couple of beats before any sound comes out. “You love me?”
I shrug, going all in. “Yeah.”
As if she only now seems to realize it, she whispers, “You’re shaking.”
I smile, kissing the corner of her mouth. “Because I’m nervous.”
Tilting her head, she lets out a quietly skeptical, “You’re not nervous.”
“I’ve only ever loved one other person.” I reach up, sliding her hair behind her shoulders and cupping her face. Fuck, the way she’s watching me . . . “And doing this feels really different, okay?”
London nods, and slides off my lap to lie back on my bed, wide blue eyes trained expectantly on my face. “What should we do?”
I smile and lose my breath a little at the way her expression softens. She’s never said it, but I can tell London loves my smile.
“I could touch you?” I ask, leaning over her to suck her neck.
I watch her pull her lower lip between her teeth, thinking this over before she whispers, “Okay. I could touch you, too?”
“Me first.” I smile into a kiss to her neck, and inch my fingers under the waistband of her underwear. My hand moves slowly over her pubic bone, farther down . . . and she hisses when I spread her, sliding over her clit and lower and—
“Fuck,” I gasp, pressing my forehead to hers. “Fuck, you are—”
“I know. I know.” She slides her hand around the back of my neck, pulling me down, closing her eyes, working her mouth over mine, working my mouth open. But I want to see her while I do this. Want to witness everything. I give her one kiss and then move back, watching her face as I pull the slickness up and over her clit, circling,
around
around
around
and her eyes fall half closed, jaw goes slack, hips arch into my hand.
“Is that nice?”
She exhales a quiet, “Yeah.”
I pull my hand out of her underwear. Her eyes shoot open and she reaches blindly for my arm. “Don’t. Don’t—”
“Shh.” I kiss her. “Trust me.” Showing her my intentions, I slide her underwear down her hips and off her legs.