Accidental Bride(36)
“Why did you?”
“I…I don’t know. I liked him, and I thought it was something I wanted to do. After the fourth time, when I still had that sick feeling afterwards, I told him I didn’t want to have sex with him again.”
“And let me guess,” Peter said dryly. “He stopped hanging out with you.”
“Yeah.”
“Asshole.”
She laughed again. “Anyway, pretty soon I had too much else to worry about, with my grandmother and our depleted finances. And I always had to make sure she didn’t think I was appropriate marriage-material, so I never put myself out there at all. So that’s been my whole experience with sex. Pretty exciting, huh?”
“You were sixteen. I don’t think most teenagers are having sex much more exciting than you had.”
“You don’t think?” She gave him a teasing look, feeling better now that she’d told him, like it wasn’t really something to be embarrassed about. This was Peter, after all. “I suppose you were some sort of stud having mind-blowing sex at sixteen?”
He gave a huff of amusement. “Uh, no.”
“So you had boring sex that was over before it started too when you were sixteen?”
“Something like that.”
There was an uncharacteristic reticence in his expression that made her immediately curious. “Peter? What kind of sex were you having at sixteen?”
With a sheepish smile, he admitted, “I wasn’t having any sort of sex. I didn’t have sex until I was seventeen.”
“Really?”
“Why are you surprised?”
“I don’t know. You’re just so good-looking and…and amazing, I assumed you’d started early.”
Pleased surprise washed over his expression, and he reached out to pull her against him in a one-armed hug. “Thank you. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
She felt good—and a little embarrassed—but she stayed cuddled up against him. “So who was the first girl you had sex with?”
“My prom date.”
Ridiculously, a little sliver of jealousy jolted through her. “Was she the first one you wanted to have sex with?”
“Of course not.”
“So why didn’t you start earlier?”
“I don’t know. I was a kid. I wasn’t all that confident around girls.”
“Really? I thought you’d be a stud.”
His arm tightened around her, and he nuzzled her hair very lightly. “I’ve never been a stud.”
“Oh. I thought you were.”
“Thanks.”
They didn’t say anything else for a few minutes, and the only sound that broke the silence was the babbling of the television, which she’d left on a repeat episode of a crime drama.
She wondered what Peter was thinking, whether he felt as close to her as she felt to him, whether he wanted to have her this close to him, whether he wanted to be even closer.
His arm around her felt like more than just a friendly thing. Maybe it was. Maybe his feelings were changing, just like hers were.
“Peter?”
“Yes.” The one word was hoarser than it should have been.
She was about to ask him what he was thinking when a flare of fear held her tongue. What if she was wrong? What if she humiliated herself? What if their friendship wouldn’t survive her making a move on him?
“What was it, Kelly?”
She let out a long breath. “Nothing really.”
“Tell me what you wanted to know.”
Put on the spot and suddenly terrified by the idea of everything changing with Peter, she fumbled through her mind for an appropriate question. “I was just wondering what happened between us that night in Vegas.”
There. That had been a good cover. It was right in line with their conversation earlier, but it wasn’t nearly so revealing, so vulnerable, as what she’d actually been wanting to ask.
“Oh.” He shifted against the headboard, although his arm was still around her.
“I mean, I know we got married, but what happened between us in bed? You said we didn’t have sex.”
“We didn’t.”
“But something happened, didn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
When she glanced up at his face, she saw he was avoiding her gaze, which was unusual enough to pique her curiosity. “Peter? Did something bad happen?”
“No, no. Nothing really bad. Just…just embarrassing.”
Her cheeks burned slightly at the idea of how uninhibited and foolish she must have been. “I know I probably made an idiot of myself. I was totally drunk. You don’t have to be afraid to tell me.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean it was embarrassing for you. For me, I meant.”