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It wouldn’t be abnormal for any other eighteen-year-old, but Ford is relentlessly careful. Aside from sneaking around with me, and maybe riding on Ty’s motorcycle, I’ve never heard of him doing anything that might ruin his future.

“Because I was mad,” he says. He pulls me against him, his voice a hissed whisper against my ear. “You think I don’t want to tell the whole fucking world you’re my girlfriend? I do. Grace, you’d be the real thing, but you’re fucking leaving. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life thinking I only got a couple months with the person I was meant to be with, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay,” I whisper back. “Because I already know it’s the case for me.”

“Do you have any idea what you might be giving up by marrying some guy just because he’s part of your church?” he demands.

He pushes me onto the bed and climbs above me. His jeans are rough against my bare legs. “What if you don’t like the way he kisses? What if he has no idea how to make you come?”

I’ve wondered this too. I tell myself we’ll figure it out, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but yes...I’ve wondered. Mostly, I wonder how I’ll stand to be with anyone but Ford.

I slide my hands under his hoody and the T-shirt beneath it and pull them over his head.

He leans down and pulls on my peaked nipple, visible through the tank’s thin fabric, with his teeth. He is already hard. I can feel his erection pressing against my thigh. His fingers slide inside my shorts. “Christ,” he groans. Suddenly it feels as if that bulge of his grew ten sizes.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

His laughter sounds choked. “Nothing. You’re just so wet already. I wasn’t expecting it.” He slides down me until he reaches my parted thighs and pulls the shorts to the side.

“I want to try something,” he says, pulling away. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes. Completely.”

There’s something in his eyes for only a moment. Something pained and torn. As if he’s considering telling me some truth about us, whatever it is he’s hiding, and my heart skitters nervously, hoping he will not. He leans down and his tongue slides over my core.

I’m so shocked by it that I suck in air, the way I might if I’d been stabbed.

His tongue darts to my clit before I can stop him and I lose the ability to say the words I need to say to cut him off.

My fingers curl into the blanket beneath me. “I⁠—”

His tongue laps over me and hot, dirty pleasure chases it. It’s indecent—I feel as if I’m supposed to make him stop.

I just don’t want to.

He unzips his pants, then grabs the globes of my ass with his palms and devours me, as if I’m the ripest peach he’s ever had, as if he wants nothing more in the world than to do exactly what he’s doing. It’s wrong, but his eagerness and enthusiasm are…worse. It’s filthy and sends a bolt of excitement through my stomach that has nothing to do with his perfect, flickering tongue.

“Fuck,” I gasp, and then I explode, his hands the only thing keeping me from flying off the bed entirely, to hover in mid-air. His tongue laps at me feverishly and I come a second time, so close on the heels of the first that it takes me a moment to realize it’s really happening again.

When my back settles, he climbs up and rests his weight atop mine, thrusting against my abdomen. His face, wet with me, buries into my neck as he rocks, desperate and fast, short, uncontrolled jabs. “That was so hot,” he gasps. “Jesus, I’m going to come.”

He spills across my stomach and chest and then collapses beside me.

“That was...” I really have no words. “I’ve spent the past seven months listening to Kappy tell people to suck a dick, and it still never occurred to me that people actually did...that.”

He laughs and squeezes my hand. “I’m pretty sure they do.”

I grab a tissue to wipe both of us off. “Is that something...you’d like? I mean, for me to do?”

He winces. “I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”

“I could try,” I offer. “I mean, I’d like to, if...”

He exhales as if he’s been punched. “Yeah,” he croaks. “I’d want you to. I’m already hard again just hearing you suggest it.”

I move down the bed and crawl between his legs, grasping him gently. “I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do.”

He sighs and laughs at the same time. “Honestly, I think I’m going to come no matter what you do.”