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“Do you want me to do the same thing?” I drag my finger across his chest. “Above here. ” Down his arm to his wrist, catching on his bracelet. “All along here. ” A lingering tap north of his knee. “From here down?”
“You could. ” His thigh shifts under my fingers, which have given up tapping in favor of fanning out over the muscle they’ve found. I want to stroke upward, filling the full width of my palm with soft denim and firm warmth until I reach the crease of his hip and have to decide where to go. Map him with my hands. “Or you could just go with the flow and trust me. ”
I try to think of something smart to say, or something funny. But those words—trust me—crumple up my confidence and toss it away.
I think, all in a rush, of the reasons I can’t trust. Bad breath and body smells, stuck zippers, biting. The words on the birth-control chart that hangs on the inside door of the bathroom stalls that I’ve meant to look up but never gotten around to. Frottage. Rimming. I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know how many girls West has had sex with, and it seems vitally necessary that I find out so I can compare myself to them unfavorably.
There are condoms in my desk drawer, but they could be the wrong size.
Trust me, he says, and I can’t shut off my brain. Last time we kissed, I was stoned, so it was different. This time I have no defense, no way to hide from how close his eyes are, how much he sees.
It was like this with Nate. Over time I got better about it, but mental flailing was pretty much my constant make-out companion until I figured out that it worked better if I had a few drinks first. Then I tried to plan as many of our sexual encounters as possible for parties.
I’m not sure I’ve ever been kissed at ten in the morning, in the daylight.
I don’t trust it. I don’t trust myself.
“We should have some music,” I blurt.
West sighs.
Then he shoves me.
I’m on my back with West above me, those eyes like smoke, that smart-ass mouth so sure of itself. “Trust me,” he says again, and kisses me.
Then it’s okay.
Way better than okay.
Kissing West is nothing like kissing Nate. His mouth is warm and sure of itself, and it says, Shut up, Caro. Close your eyes. Stop thinking.
Feel.
I do. I can’t not. With West’s mouth on mine, feeling is the only thing I’m capable of.
We kiss. Time passes, and we kiss.
I wish I had words, if only so I could press them into memory. This hot, wet slide of tongue against tongue, soft lips and angled mouths, fitting and refitting. This beautiful pulse, this damp haze, this foggy, hot, yearning ache.
There are more ways to kiss than anyone ever told me, and I want them all.
I get them. I get West, his mouth, his weight, his smell.
We kiss.
The lines we’ve drawn on our bodies aren’t important. They’re just pencil marks we need to put around this thing that’s so big, it could get scary if we let it.
Kissing West is my hands in his hair, on his neck, spanning his shoulders. It’s clutching his back when he plunges his tongue into my mouth, finding his waist, sneaking my hands under his shirt to steal the heat and smoothness of his skin.
It’s his body above me, his chest on me, a heavy crush I can’t get enough of because he’s always been so far away and now he’s here. His palm cradling my head, his fingers curled around my shirt at the shoulder, fisted in a tight grip because they want to wander and he won’t let them.
It’s his pale eyes, a rim of bluish color around huge dark pupils, his eyelashes long and his eyelids sleepy.
It’s the sighing weight of his forehead on mine when he has to breathe.
Lazy heat. Connection. Safety and quiet in a place where I’ve been alone and afraid and the voices in my head have been loud for weeks now. Months. He casts a spell on me, throws me into a gorgeous daze where I could kiss him forever and be perfectly content.
We have fifty minutes.
