AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m sure.” He brushes his lips against my forehead and I smell the scotch on his tongue. I want to taste it on mine. “I’m sure about everything with you.”
I smile and nestle into his embrace, a deep cocoon of warmth I never want to leave. Kelly watches us from across the room, and there’s a knowing gleam in her eyes. I feel a gentle twist in my gut as I remember I won’t be here with them next year. There might be someone else in my place, and Kelly could be looking at her like that, too.
I hate it.
I want it to be me.
“We’re going to head to bed,” Amanda says. She picks up a sleeping Eliza and cradles her in her arms. “We’ll see everyone in the morning.”
“Do you need help with her?” Shawn asks, nodding to the eight-year-old spitfire who’s quiet for the first time all evening.
“We’re good.” Amanda hands her off to her husband and bends down to kiss her father’s cheek. “Night.”
Everyone else begins to say their goodnights. Glasses are collected, and the fire is put out. The tree lights are turned off, and the house starts to grow quiet.
“Ready?” Shawn asks. He stands up and offers me his hand.
“Yeah,” I say, and he pulls me to my feet. “Good night, Kelly and Michael. Thank you for a lovely first night.”
“Of course, sweetie.” Kelly squeezes my elbow as we pass. “We’re so glad you’re here.”
I smile as we climb the stairs to Shawn’s bedroom. His old space is in the back of the house, where it’s cool and quiet.
“How many girls have you had in here?” I ask when he opens the door and locks it behind us. “A thousand?”
“You’re severely overestimating my teenage capabilities. I played football six days a week. The hours I wasn’t playing, I was studying or spending time with my friends and family. I’ve never—” he pauses, the briefest flash of anguish on his face. “You’re the first.”
“I am?”
“Yeah.” His head bobs, and he busies himself with a jar of pencils on his desk. The old kind you have to sharpen, and my lips twitch in amusement. “Couldn’t ask for a better person to lose my virginity to.”
The laugh wooshes out of me, and before I know what I’m doing, I’m jumping in his arms. I tickle under his ribs and he launches me onto his bed, a plush mattress that bounces me twice before I settle against the sheets.
My laughter dies in my throat when I see Shawn staring at me.
“What?” I ask, a ghost of a question.
“You,” he says, and I reach for him the same time he reaches for me.
His lips crash against mine, a bruising display of affection after hours of pent-up tension. Small touches and subtle grazes of his fingers up my thigh. My chest against his back and the swish of my hips as I walked away from the dinner table.
“There’s not anyone here,” I whisper against his mouth before he drags his lips down my neck. Presses a kiss to the spot behind my ear. “We don’t have to pretend.”
Shawn pulls back. He looks down at me, and there’s a divot of wrinkles between his eyebrows. I try to rub them away with my thumb, but they don’t disappear. “What are you talking about?”
“Just… you know. In here we can be ourselves. We don’t have to act like we’re…”
“Do you—I still want to kiss you,” he says. “I always want to kiss you, even if we’re the only ones in the room. Is that… would that be okay with you?”
“Yeah.” I wrap my arms around his neck and bring him close to me. He tumbles onto the mattress, knees knocking against mine. “That would definitely be okay, because I always want to kiss you, too.”
It’s the first time I’ve really seriously thought about us having something long and lasting after the holidays have passed. Something we won’t let end but keep tending, keep building and growing.
A relationship.
Arealrelationship full of love and laughs and so much fun.
It wouldn’t be much different from what we have now.
