Chapter 21
twenty-one
ROSIE
I think Locke hates our couch. Or, at least, he doesn’t like it as much as he did before crying in my arms.
I’ve felt closer to him after that night. More supportive of what he needs, and more understanding of who he is. Being someone he trusts with such vulnerable parts of his life means more to me than I think he’ll ever know.
It was always me showing myself to the guys I date.
I’ve thought about our night every day since it happened, and the more I simmer in those feelings, the more I realize Locke is the first man to show me a deeper side of him.
In the ways that we connect and show ourselves to each other, we’re equal. I’ll never take that for granted.
So, I don’t complain the first night Locke suggests not sitting on the couch together after class. I thought it was cute how timidly he asked me to do nothing with him.
In his bed, specifically.
It was nice. Laying together with no obligation of talking or performing. The comfort of each other’s presence is more than enough. I laid in his arms, we both scrolled our phones with the occasional meme to show one another, and called it a night when the clock dipped past twelve.
I was happy with that the first night. The second and third, too.
I knew Friday night would be different. Past me thought I’d be too excited about watching spooky movies, just one week before Halloween, to be away from that couch. I even planned a speech to convince Locke to break our new bedtime routine and watch the films he says doesn’t scare him.
I’d propose we do one movie on the couch, and one in bed. If that didn’t work, I’d bribe him with apple oatmeal cookies and promise to play one of his online battle royale games.
If that was unsuccessful, the last resort was to offer kisses until he folded. I have a feeling that plan would’ve been bulletproof.
Turns out, all my plans were unneeded. My resolve disappeared as soon as Locke walked into the dorm. When he pushed his damp, butter blonde hair out of his eyes, and left raindrops slowly trickling off the silver metal of his watch, spending a night in bed didn’t sound so bad.
When Locke walked straight up to me, pulled me into a sweeping kiss, and whispered, “Lay with me tonight?” I stopped giving a fuck about those horror movies.
After he takes a quick shower, we find ourselves in a familiar position. My head comfortably laying on his chest, legs jumbled together while we distract ourselves online. Doing absolutely nothing.
It’s relaxing and calm, but it’s worlds away from what I’d hoped we’d be doing.
The first time Locke asked me to come to bed with him, I had the same thought, but as an assumption. I assumed my roommate was asking me into his sheets so I could undress myself, then be wrapped up in his linens.
I can’t remember a time when a boy took me to his bedroom without the intention of stripping me down.
When I thought Locke was inviting me to do just that, it didn’t feel like a chore, or an obligation of our relationship. I was excited. I wanted to show him every curve of my body and dip of my flesh.
Vulnerability shared is vulnerability cherished, and I want him to cherish me.
Our clothes are still on. Aside from pulling me into his arms, he hasn’t made any move to touch me. When he does look down at me and speaks, it’s to show me a video he thinks is funny. Or to ask about my plans. Never what I’m wearing under my sweater and if I want to turn the lights off.
The same man who opened his heart to me and showed me a version of himself no one else has seen, wants to do nothing more than enjoy my company.
Before Locke, I don’t think I’ve ever felt real intimacy.
“We’re having a watch party on Halloween, right?”
He says it while I’m trying to keep my mind off my real desires for tonight. Seeing him walk in from the rain with a damp sheen covering his skin set my mind on fire. Knowing he wants me for my mind and heart—and not just my body—makes him ten times more intoxicating.
I stare up at him. “How’d you know I wanted to watch scary movies?”
“Because I know you.”
A smirk twists its way onto my face. I tell myself it’s solely because of his kindness, and not at all because of what that kindness does to me.
“Almost sounds like you’re saying yes, even though you’re terrified of them.”
“Pft.” The scoff is hilariously fake. “I’m not terrified.”
“You hate them.”
“It’s not my favorite genre.”
He tightens his arm around my shoulders, and I giggle. “There’s nothing wrong with hating scary movies. We can do something else for Halloween.”
He mumbles, “We’ll think on it.”
We don’t say anything else for another thirteen minutes. I count them. My attention is half on the clock at the top corner of my phone screen, and half on the plains of his chest beneath his Spider-man t-shirt.
Locke made it abundantly clear he doesn’t expect anything sexual from me. That makes me want him desperately. I try to ignore it. I don’t want to pressure him into anything he’s not comfortable with.
My thighs rub together for a fourth time before I decide to drop a hint. Or two. Just a few, to show him if he wants this—me—then he’s welcome to take it.
The slight shift of my thigh running lightly over the top of his leg, knee inching closer to what I want isn’t supposed to be subtle. I hang onto every piece of a reaction he gives me. His thumb stopping mid-swipe. The lump bobbing in his throat.
He glances at me for only a few seconds before faking a cough and going back to what he was doing.
It was one movement. It shouldn’t have much of an effect on him, I don’t think. But there’s a sudden firmness pressing against my knee, and a burst of heat spreads across my body.
Got him.
“Locke.” I say in a sing-song voice. He hums right before I toss my phone somewhere at the edge of the bed and let my hand run across the hem of his shirt instead.
My elbow comes under me so I can shift my weight. I can’t hear his heart beating anymore, but the rapid lifting and dropping of his chest tells me enough. When I slip my fingertips under the black fabric and trail the skin above his pajama pants, he gasps.
“Are you… teasing me?” His words sound strained through his gritted teeth.
The red flush of his face and the growing bulge against my knee has me pulsing in all the right places.
I press a full hand against the center of his abdomen and bite my lip. “Is it working?”
The world blurs. Jumbled motions of blankets being kicked off and positions being changed.
When everything comes into focus again, I’m laying on my back and Locke is hovering above me.
Right hand pinned next to my head, and his left running through his hair.
Just like when he entered the apartment earlier.
His wrist flexes under the expensive metal of his watch and I rub my thighs together again.
“This wasn’t why I asked you to come to my bedroom.”
“I know.” I rasp. The thought of him respecting me enough to clarify his intentions sends another surge of desire through me. My knee finds its familiar place between his legs, and I moan. “I want it.”
“You do?” His breaths are shallow, hand moving from his hair to grip my waist. The fabric of my sweater keeps me from feeling him skin to skin.
I whine and start tugging at my top. “Now.”
“Fuck, Rosie.”
I let a moment hang between us, in case he makes a move to stop me. When he doesn’t, I rip my sweater off and throw it somewhere in the depths of his room, where it belongs.
“You’re killing me.” His body moves to lean on his knees. One hand lifts his shirt just slightly, the other, with that damned watch, works its way over his crotch in slow, methodical motions.
I’ve never felt want like this. So charged, slick dampening the space between my legs and a large cloud of heat encasing us. My eyes follow every movement he makes and my body lights up with each inch of skin he exposes, from his defined hip bone and the dip of his collar.
There are too many clothes between us.
I’m shoving my hands under the waistband of my own pajama pants when Locke speaks again, voice unsteady.
“Wait. We need to have a talk first. Before we do anything.”
My hands stall. I take a deep breath and gulp. “About what?”
“The usual.” He holds eye contact, like he’s waiting for me to understand, but I don’t.
I scan my brain for what he means and nothing comes up.
After a long stretch of silence, his green eyes go wide.
“Consent, Rosalie. We need to discuss consent.” My confusion lives alone before his hand flexes again, and heat emerges beside it.
“We need to discuss what you like, too. So I can make this good for you. Exactly how you want.”
There’s a sharp intake. I’ve never had either of those talks before.
“Okay… How would we go about that?”
Shock passes through Locke’s expression.
“You’ve never had a consent talk before sex?” I shake my head. He sighs, exasperated. “Boys. You’ve dated a bunch of immature boys before me.”
It’s hot all over again. The rough tone of his voice and flex of his jaw tightens muscles in my body I didn’t know I had. Before I can stop myself, I whine and pull at his top.
“Hurry with the talks. I’m getting impatient.”
Locke releases a laugh and tugs my hand to his mouth for a kiss. “You’re in charge, okay? You tell me to wait, I wait. You say stop, I stop. We don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
He kisses the skin of my palm in between sentences and my heart melts. There wasn’t a world where I ever doubted those things of him.
“Got it. We don’t do anything you don’t want to, either.” He nods and leaves one last kiss on my thumb before I spit out impatiently, “Next?”
He stares down at me. I’ve thought about his eyes so many times, I swore I had them memorized. But they’re a different shade of green now—darker, more intense.
“What do you like? How do you want it?”