Chapter 26
Twenty-Six
August
She tastes like honey. I’ve waited for so long—so fucking long—to know. And she’s delicious. I eat at her mouth, a man consumed by hunger. I didn’t know I could be this hungry. My fingers slide into the thick mass of her hair, gripping it as I angle in for a deeper taste. It will never be enough.
She’s just as frantic, fisting my shirt, cupping my cheek like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
Never going to happen. Little gasps puff from her mouth as we feast on each other.
Groaning, I lift her onto my lap and lean back as she presses against me.
Lust makes me lightheaded, clumsy. My tongue slides over hers, slick and hot and perfect.
I could lose myself in this. Just kissing.
I nip her lower lip, slide my hand up under her shirt to feel her silky skin.
I want to touch those tits. They’ve starred in too many dreams. My hands are shaking with that want.
But suddenly she pulls back, our kiss breaking with an audible wet sound. Her hair is mussed, breasts heaving with panting breaths. “Wait. Hold on.”
The command knocks the wind out of me. It’s such a shift that my head pounds before I can find my voice. “What’s wrong?”
If she’s changed her mind I’m going to cry. Big football player tears.
My fear increases as she slides off my lap and curls up at the edge of the sofa.
Her velvety eyes are huge in the oval of her face as she bites the edge of her thumb.
Fuck. What did I do? Was I coming on too strong.
Probably. I’d never been that relieved or that needy from hearing a simple “yes.” I’ll have to explain; I can be gentle. I can.
“Pen—”
“I have to tell you something.” She lowers her thumb then nibbles on it again. “But I . . . well, honestly, I should have said this before.”
The way her gaze keeps darting away makes me sit up fully. “What is it? You’re scaring me with that expression. Just tell me, Sweets.”
“I will, I’m just . . . God. I’m so embarrassed.
I can physically feel little flames of it on my skin.
” She waves her hands as if trying to beat off that embarrassment.
It’s cute. Or would be if she hadn’t just slammed the breaks on us.
She’s also clearly uncomfortable, which is the last thing I want her to be.
“Sweetheart, nothing you could say could possibly be—” She shoots me a repressive glare, and I hold up my hands. “Okay, okay. Just . . . take your time. I’m here.”
“I know. You’re so great. I want you so much—”
“Well, that’s good to hear. Fucking great to hear, honestly. I want you so badly, sweet Pen. More than you know.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose. “Okay. Just let me say this. I can say this . . .”
Really worried now, I take her hand in mine and find it clammy. “Baby. Just say it.”
“I’m a virgin.”
Oh. Oh.
“Okay.” I frown. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“But you’re—”
“Twenty-two, yes, I’m aware.”
She looks so cutely disgruntled; I bite back a smile.
“I was going to say, ‘so hot.’”
“Oh.” Her cheeks pink as though the idea of me calling her hot is a shock. Honestly, this girl.
“How have you gone this long without anyone trying?”
Pen’s eyes narrow. “I didn’t say no one tried. I just never accepted.”
“Right.” I swallow, stare down at our clenched hands, then meet her defensive gaze. “Is it . . . didn’t you want to?”
She wrenches her hand away. “Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is why I was afraid to tell you.”
“Penelope.” I take her hand back and squeeze it gently. “I’m only trying to understand why you’re embarrassed.”
“I’m not. Okay, I am, but I don’t want to be.
It’s more I feel like maybe people will think I’m a freak or I don’t know .
. .” She sighs and straightens like she’s facing a tribunal.
“It’s like this. I don’t make new relationships easily.
It’s hard to let someone in. And it’s not that I think virginity is some sort of precious commodity that I must save for marriage.
“But sex is, for me at least, an act of trust. I’m letting someone touch my body, into my body, for fuck’s sake. That’s big for me. So it was never going to be a drunken fumble on someone’s couch—”
Inwardly, I wince a bit because that’s exactly what my first time was.
“—I wanted to wait for someone I really liked. Then the whole awful pandemic happened, and I’m not risking a kiss for nothing, never mind going all the way—”
“Hold on.” I lean forward, peering at her glassy eyes. “A kiss?”
She flushes rose red. “Ah, yes. I mean, kissing hasn’t been . . . That is to say, if I’d liked someone enough to kiss them, I probably would have liked them enough to have sex with them, I guess.”
A certain sort of horror blooms in my gut as I figure things out. “You never kissed anyone?”
“Why would I?” She shrugs. “I didn’t date, didn’t have a boyfriend . . .”
The horror grows. “Your first kiss was—”
“With you in the stadium,” she finishes with a nod.
I can see it now. How nervous she was, how she’d been stiff at first and let me lead, not only because it was a manufactured show but because she’d never done it before.
“Oh, no.” I run a shaking hand through my hair. “No, no, no . . .”
Pen’s brows snap together, her nostrils flaring. “Are you upset that I’m so inexperienced?”
“I’m upset because your first kiss was done under false pretenses,” I exclaim, wanting to kick my own ass. “That’s on me. Shit.”
Pen glares hotly. “I thought it was good. I mean, yes, it was supposed to be fake, but I liked it. I liked all of our kisses.”
“Baby.” I cup her face with hands that aren’t too steady. “Fake kisses or not, you nearly brought me to my knees with them. But your first kiss should have been real both in action and thought.”
“Funny thing is, it felt real.”
“Maybe because I’ve been wanting to kiss you forever. It was real to me.”
“So why are you upset?”
“Because, in the back of our minds, we were thinking it was for show. That’s not right.” I brush a kiss over the tip of her nose. “Not when I should have told you what I wanted all along.”
Pen takes hold of my wrists and strokes my pulse as she searches my face. “So you don’t think it’s weird? The virgin thing?”
I kiss the corner of her mouth. Then the other corner. “I mean, I do wonder how you didn’t burst with horniness at some point.”
With a huff she wrinkles her nose. “I can get myself off perfectly well, thank you.”
“Killing me here.”
“August.”
I smile at the note of warning in her voice.
“Sweets. No, it’s not weird. And you shouldn’t be embarrassed.
You stayed true to yourself. If you never found anyone you wanted to do this with, then you didn’t.
” My thumb brushes the elegant curve of her jaw.
“That you want to with me is humbling, and a huge turn-on, if I’m honest.”
The glossy tumble of her hair sways over her shoulder as she dips her head shyly. “I do. Want you, that is.”
“Sweets,” I whisper and pepper soft kisses along her cheeks, the corners of her eyes. “I do too. So fucking much.”
“Good.” She trembles and scoots closer. “But I don’t know what I’m doing. You’re going to have to take the lead.”
The plea affects me so much I take a minute to just breathe, resting my head against hers.
The idea of leading her into sex, of being her first .
. . I don’t give a shit if it’s base man-thinking, I fucking love it.
I love that she trusts me that much, that I’ll be the one she remembers forever as her first. Because I will make it good.
It’s the most important job I’ve ever been given.
Breathing in deep, I straighten and hold her hands.
“We need to talk protection.”
“Okay.” Her expression turns serious, and even that makes me want to smile; I’m so gone on her.
“Okay,” I repeat. “I didn’t bring anything because I honestly hadn’t thought I’d be given this gift tonight.”
Her smile is small but sweet. “Shows what you know.”
“Yeah.” I kiss her again. “That’ll teach me.”
A soft laugh vibrates my lips. And I pull back to meet her eyes. “I’ll go and get some condoms.”
She nibbles her bottom lip before saying, “I’m on the pill.”
Stilling, I cup her cheeks as my heartbeat kicks into overtime. “Are you saying—”
“I don’t want to wait for you to go buy a condom.” She draws back. “Unless you’re uncomfortable with not using one, which is totally cool. Well, that, and if you have an STI we’re going to wait until it’s cleared up.”
A laugh bursts out of me. It honestly feels so good, I keep grinning. I love how bluntly forthright she gets in certain situations. Even now, she simply looks at me with a quirked brow as though waiting for confirmation.
“I’m good to go,” I say, getting myself under control. “I’ve been checked and haven’t been with anyone since then.”
“Well, okay,” she says, pleased. But then narrows her eyes. “And you’re all right with foregoing the condom?”
Am I okay with it?
I fist my hands and press them into the couch to keep from hauling her onto my lap and simply taking. “More than okay. In the spirit of honesty, I’ve never gone without. It’s a matter of trust too.”
“Because someone might not be honest about protection.”
“It happens.” The first lecture my dad hammered into me with “the talk” was that I needed to protect myself as well as any partner I might have.
Pen rests her hand on my thigh. “And you’re willing to take that risk with me?”
“Penelope, there is no risk with you.”
Her smile is shy but glowing.
“This means something to me too,” I tell her. Because she needs to know how safe she is with me.
She tightens her grip on my thigh. “I’m so glad it’s you.”
Simple words. They punch into me with the force of a linebacker.
“Come here,” I whisper, gathering her up in my arms and rising.
She holds on tight, as I shut off the fire and kill the lights with my free hand. “Where are we going?”
“Bedroom.” I kiss the plump of her cheek. “We’re going to need a lot of room to maneuver. And your first time isn’t going to be on a couch.”