Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86422 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
“You were out cold, and I wasn’t going to leave you on the living room couch.” Mac closes the door with a quiet snick, but he doesn’t bridge the distance between us.
“It was really sweet that you gave up your bed for me.” I roll my bottom lip between my teeth and summon my courage to be completely honest. “I was a little disappointed that I woke up alone, though.”
“Believe me, I wanted to spoon you all night.” He crosses the room, only stopping when our toes touch. “I wanted to do a lot more than spoon you, actually, but restraint and all that.”
“I would’ve loved waking up in your arms.” I link my hands behind his neck and tip my chin up, hopeful and expectant. “Surrounded by you.”
“Thought about that a lot.” He cups my cheek in his palm and dips down, pausing when he’s an inch from my mouth. “Can I kiss you, Ophelia?”
My heart stutters at the use of my full name. “Please.”
He brushes his lips over mine. “That kiss has been on repeat.”
“For me too. Incessantly.” I lick his top lip. “Obsessively.”
He wraps his arm around my waist and angles his head. It starts out slow and soft, but quickly turns hot and needy. I back him toward his bed and when he sits on the edge, I climb into his lap and straddle his thighs.
I slide a hand under his shirt, groaning at the feel of his hot skin under my fingers.
“Fee,” he murmurs.
“You can touch me. I want you to touch me, too,” I assure him.
“Fuck.” He takes my hands in his and breaks the kiss, eyes on fire, jaw set. “I need to tell you something.”
“Sure, okay.” My entire body zings with anticipation. “You can tell me anything.”
“I’m a virgin.”
CHAPTER 21
MAC
For half a second, I want to shove my words back in my face. Fee didn’t need the truth at the start of our very first make-out session.
But she leans back, her eyes soft and warm as she runs her fingers through my hair, nails dragging lightly down the back of my neck, eliciting a shiver. “We can take it as slow as you want, Mac.”
My fingers flex on her hips. “I just take a while for my hormones to catch up with the emotional connection.”
“I’m not sad about that.” She kisses me softly but doesn’t deepen it.
I’m compelled to explain. “I’ve done all the other stuff, just not actual sex.”
“Okay.” She traces the shell of my ear with a single finger. “You set the pace, then.” Her eyes dart to the side for a moment. “I’m not a virgin, if that matters at all to you.”
“No…that’s not…it doesn’t change how I feel.” Do I like the idea of someone else having these experiences with her that I want for myself? Not particularly, but we all came here from somewhere else, and our past shapes who we are now.
“I do wish I would have waited for someone I actually cared deeply about, though,” she admits.
“Was it a heat-of-the-moment thing?” I push her hair back off her shoulders, wanting the contact along with this connection, where she shares pieces of herself with me.
She shakes her head and my stomach twists at the pain in her expression.
My shoulders tighten. “Was it consensual?”
Her eyes flare. “Oh, yeah. It wasn’t…I just had sex for the wrong reasons.”
“Oh.” The tension in my body eases. “I’m sorry. Did you feel pressured?” For a moment I think about Brody and how uncomfortable he is with girls, especially when they get touchy. He’s made a couple of offhand comments that make me believe something happened that was outside of his control.
“No. He didn’t pressure me.” She keeps running her fingers through my hair as she shares this piece of her past. “I was grieving my parents, and the pain was…a lot. More than I knew what to do with some days. I was angry and hurting and I just wanted to feel something different, something good.” She rolls her eyes to the ceiling for a moment, before they return to me, a little sad. “So I had sex with this guy I’d only been going out with for a couple of months. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he wasn’t the right one either, and I was too much of an emotional wreck to handle a relationship, and he wasn’t someone I wanted to be with long-term. He was nice, and he was good about it being my first time, but it wasn’t special.”
“I’m sorry, Fee.” I stroke her cheek. “I wish I’d known you then. I could have been someone you leaned on when you were struggling.”
“I don’t know that I would have been able to trust the stability, but I’ve learned not to hide from the pain since then, and I know that for me, sex and emotional connection aren’t separable. I need both.”