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Sunny nods. “If we do tonight right, you might need it.”

There are social media videos online of a guy watching other people’s videos, then he runs around a field waving a red flag. He’s all I can see in my head right now.

Safe words. Motorcycle clubhouses. Bikers who have sex in public. Weapons.

But none of that is enough to stop me from stepping back a little so Sunny can raise my top over my head.

He’s had plenty of time to hurt me since we met. Instead, he’s helped me. Every step of the way.

I like the certainty of his hands, the way his lips feel when they’re against mine, and how all practical thoughts and anxieties scurry when he talks to me the way he does. He’s so utterly confident and convinced I can do this that I almost believe him.

Sunny lifts my top over my head, and suddenly, I’m exposed. My bra isn’t much to look at. It’s soft, because I’ve never been overly comfortable in anything with an underwire, and lace makes me itch.

“Pretty,” Sunny says, running his fingertip down the valley between my breasts.

The protest I was about to lodge disappears when he reaches for the belt of my jeans.

“You know,” he says. “Anytime you want to join in and undress me, you can.”

I jump, as if remembering some crucial task, and reach for his leather cut. It’s cool beneath my fingers as I nudge it off his shoulders.

Sunny chuckles. “I mean, you aren’t gonna be in trouble if you don’t, Della. I’ve been undressing myself for at least a couple of decades, so I’m more than capable of pulling my own clothes off tonight, if I need to.”

“I’m sorry, you distracted me.”

He lowers his lips to mine again but stops just short of kissing me. “I like distracting you.”

When he kisses me again, I step up onto my toes and wrap my hands around his neck. Because if I’m in for this, I should be all in.

Even if I do it wrong, I should do what feels right to me.

Sunny lifts me as if I weigh nothing, which I know isn’t true. But he makes it seem…romantic. One of his hands sneaks over my ass and squeezes my butt cheek, and despite being someone who likes control and order, I find myself enjoying the uncertainty.

In one smooth move, he grips beneath my knees, hoists me higher, then turns the two of us to push me back against the wall.

“That’s better,” he mutters, as he grinds up against my good bits.

I gasp as he rolls his hips, his cock pressing against me. Words are inadequate to explain the explosion of heat deep at my core.

I’m no waif, but he holds me like I am. Like there is absolutely zero chance of his arms giving in. And knowing I’m safe in his care makes something warm and soft seep through me, even as my heart attempts to batter its way through my rib cage.

Sunny presses his lips to mine, and I begin to understand there are different kinds of kisses. Teasing ones. Ones that feel like unanswered questions. Ones where Sunny smiles against my mouth, like he’s happy in this moment or finds me inexplicably adorable.

This kiss settles on my lips like he already knows all the answers. And it makes a change to not be the one expected to provide them.

It’s okay to be the student, for once.

He doesn’t need me to know everything.

A noise escapes me, one that under just about any other circumstance would embarrass me. But Sunny groans in response as his tongue seeks mine. And suddenly, I’m less concerned about the noises I’m making and more interested in what it would take to make him do that again.

So, I try.

I curl my fingers into his hair and tug hard.

His hips jerk against mine, sending that delicious friction against my clit into orbit.

Interesting. “Did you like that?” I ask.