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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Everything was perfect, and Serena felt like nothing bad could ever happen to her again. Not when she was feeling like this, all softly melting and brilliantly sparkling at the same time.
And still...there was more. More she wanted. More she needed to finally experience.
She'd been naked plenty of times in her life as she changed backstage at fashion shows, and while designers had pinned and draped fabric over her. Her mother had always been there to watch the proceedings like a hawk, so there had never been the slightest bit of sexuality to her nakedness while she worked. On the contrary, she'd always felt as if she was no different than a plastic mannequin standing cold and lifeless while waiting for someone to dress her in the latest fashions for a display window.
Being naked with Sean was a revelation. He looked at her with so much heat, and with seemingly unquenchable, never-ending need. He couldn't keep his hands off her as he stroked and caressed, so sweetly gentle and then perfectly rough just when she needed him to be. And when his tongue had slicked across her nipple and he'd drawn her in between his lips?
Delicious shivers wracked her body as arousal set up high and heavy in her bloodstream just from remembering how good it felt. Her eyes were still closed but she could feel his fingertips lightly dancing over her eyelids, then down the bridge of her nose and over her lips and neck, until he laid his large palm flat between her breasts, right where her heart was still beating so fast for him.
"Serena?"
She knew he was probably concerned about having pushed her too far. But didn't he know that he shouldn't have one single thing to worry about right now on her behalf? Not when she felt better than she ever had in her entire life.
"That was--" She was about to say amazing, but the word didn't sound right in her head. What they'd just shared, what Sean had just shown her, was so far beyond amazing that all the seven-letter word did was make it sound trite, rather than the most beautiful, wonderful, incredible thing that had ever happened to her.
So instead of trying to find the right words, she opened her eyes, smiled, and kissed him.
She kissed him to show him how much she loved him, even though she was scared to say it so soon.
She kissed him to tell him just how good he'd made her feel.
She kissed him as an open invitation to taking all of her, body and soul, with nothing held back anymore.
"Make love to me, Sean."
She whispered the words between kisses. And when he groaned and kissed her back, she didn't let herself overthink things, just reached for the button of his jeans to strip away the denim barrier between them. But just as he had when she'd been about to take off her own clothes, he put his hand over hers to still it.
"I want you, Serena. You can't possibly imagine how much I want you right now. To take you and make you mine. But--"
"I already told you," she interjected, "you don't have to wait. We don't have to wait."
She was begging, but she didn't care. Not when he'd just given her a taste of something more beautiful than she could ever have imagined and she now knew that a taste could never again be enough. She had to have all of it--all of him, and herself, too.
"Earlier, when I woke up and you were looking at the pictures--"
"I'm sorry," she said again. "I won't pry again. Not until you're ready."
Still holding her close, so close that her breasts were pressed against his cotton-covered chest, he said, "I don't want you to apologize anymore. I'm not angry with you, Serena, I swear I'm not. I meant it when I said if there was anyone I talk about my mom with, it would be you." He inhaled a hard, slightly shaky breath. "Soon." She knew it was a promise. One that he meant. "But not today. Not yet." He paused another beat, before adding, "And if I can't give you everything, then you shouldn't give me this."
If she could have argued against what he'd just said for the sake of pleasure and pleasure alone, she would have done just that. Especially when she knew that he'd had plenty of sex before, with girls he hadn't let into his heart anywhere as deeply as she was already. But it was more than just the fact that he wasn't yet able to trust her with his grief over losing his mother that held her back. Wasn't it true that she hadn't told him everything about her mother, either?
Soon. Just like he'd said, she would tell him soon.
"Okay," she finally said, "but even though I'm agreeing that we should wait a little longer to sleep together, that doesn't mean I want to wait until next Friday to see you again."
"There's no freaking way I'm waiting a week, either." He kissed her, but when the soft press of their lips quickly shifted back to full-on passion, each of them made themselves pull back. "We may have to meet in public spaces from now on, though."
She knew he was simply joking about the fact that they were bound to jump each other if they were alone again, but she needed him to know something. "I'm sick of hiding, Sean. I don't care if every magazine in the world prints pictures of us." She'd been so worried about her mother disowning her for dating someone. But she'd just have to find a way to make Genevieve understand that this wasn't a fling and Sean wasn't using her. It was, at least on her side, love. "I want to be your girlfriend. For real. Out in the open so that everyone knows I'm yours."
"Mine." He didn't hold back with the kiss that followed his verbal possession of her, and she loved feeling that possession in the way he ran his hands over her curves, from breasts to hips and then between her legs, too. "One more, Serena. Give me one more before I take you home."
Her lungs all out of breath, her brain all out of words, she told him yes simply by wrapping her arms and legs around him and kissing him back with all the passion she possessed.
*
A little while later, Serena somehow managed to firm up her melted bones and fried brain cells enough to put her clothes and shoes back on, even as she was terribly distracted by how aroused Sean still must be. She'd done absolutely nothing to take the edge off his desire, but that was only because he'd stuck firmly to his guns and hadn't let her.
Again and again, she kept reminding herself that he was right--they needed to take the final emotional step with each other before they took any of the next physical ones. The problem was, every time she thought about the way he'd touched her, kissed her, how high he'd sent her flying...it only got harder and harder to remember all the rational reasons to keep taking things slowly.
When they were both fully dressed, he slid his fingers through her hair to comb it back from her face. "Ready to do this?"
She smiled at him. "It's my very first walk of shame. Just like all the other normal Stanford students have already done."
When his face fell, she realized just how stupid her joke had been. "I'm just kidding. I'm not ashamed to be with you, or to leave your room with everyone knowing exactly what we've been doing." She went up onto her tippy-toes to kiss him. "In fact, is it bad that a part of me wants all of them to know?"
Slowly, his lips curved up into a smile. "They'll all think and say whatever they want. But the only one I give a shit about is you. Although, if someone says something to you that makes you uncomfortable, I want you to tell me right away."
"If they do say something, I'm not going to worry about it." She looked into his deep green yes. "Not anymore. Because the only one I give a shit about is you."
She loved hearing him laugh at her surprising potty mouth and was glad that they'd managed to break through the tension. He put her bag over his shoulder, then held his door open for her. It figured that she'd barely put one foot over the threshold when she walked into one of his frat brothers.
The guy looked at her, then around her to see Sean standing in the doorway. "Dude." He strung out the four-letter word into one long sound.
Sean put his arm around her waist. "Zane, this is my girlfriend, Serena."
She loved the way he said it so easily. "Hi," she said, smiling. "It's nice to meet you."
Sean's friend seemed more than a
little bit stunned. "Great to meet you, too."
"Talk to you later," Sean said before his friend could start a conversation. His hand remained on her lower back as he directed her toward the main stairs rather than the back ones they'd come up the night before.
"'Bye," she called over her shoulder with another smile.
One by one they met more of his frat brothers and teammates downstairs, every one of them having a similar borderline-speechless reaction. Finally, when they made it outside to the sidewalk, she couldn't hold back her laughter any longer.
"Wow, my head is spinning at how quickly you got us through there. What exactly did you think they were going to do if we hadn't blasted through?"
"With those guys? Who the hell knows? Trust me, they're all losing their minds over finally seeing you and me together."
"I know I'm not always the most socially adept person on the planet," she admitted, "but I think I could have held my own if you'd let us stay long enough to talk with any of them."
"Of course you can hold your own." It warmed her how he said it, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That's not why I got us out of there so fast."
"Then why?"
"Because they can be a bunch of idiots. And if any of them had said anything even remotely inappropriate to you, I would have had to tear them apart with my bare hands. Right in front of you."
She'd known he was protective, had heard it in his voice when he spoke about his sisters and the rest of his family. And she'd seen it for herself, as well, in how he'd gone out of his way to carefully plan their Friday nights so that she wouldn't be recognized. But this morning, it was amazing to see his protectiveness in action. First, when he'd held them back from making love because he thought they needed to take the final emotional step before they had sex. And now, when he couldn't so much as stand the thought of anyone disrespecting her.
