The Girl Who Fell(60)
“I didn’t know.”
“I’ve never told anyone before.” His fingers rake at my curls. “I think I have trust issues because of my parents’ bullshit, but I don’t want that for me. I want to know I can trust the person I love, that we’ll always treat each other with respect.” He twists my hip, flipping me to face him. My chest presses against his bare skin. My heart thunders with the rush.
“I don’t want to do anything to lose you.” He kisses me, butterfly wings sweeping. “I’m just so afraid of being a shitty girlfriend. What if I mess up again?”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t know that. I could screw it all up like I almost did.”
“We’ll be okay.”
“Yeah, until the next time. I’ve never done any of this before, Alec. Not really. I mean, not seriously.”
“Done what?”
“All of it. Love. Sex. Dating someone this seriously. I’ve never met anyone who mattered the way you do.”
“It’s okay. I get it.”
“You do?”
“Of course. Why do you think this fucked with my head so badly?” He pulls away, lies on his back, stares at my ceiling.
“I wish I were more experienced. Or better at this or something.”
He props onto an elbow. “That’s crazy talk. You’re perfect, Zephyr.”
“Not even close.”
“Well, we’ll figure out the imperfect parts together. And we’ll wait until you’re ready. Go as slow or as fast as you want. No pressure.”
“I’m not sure I want slow,” I say, and that distant darkness burns deep in Alec’s eyes again.
He kisses me hard then, his hands roaming over my chest, until he stops, whispers in my ear. “I made myself nuts this weekend imagining you with Slice.”
“I told you it’s not like that.”
“I believe you, I do.” He moves off me. One finger trails a line across my skin, bumping into the soft hollow of my belly button. His touch, there—it steals my breath. “But I need you to prove it. This is important to me. Like I said, I’ve got trust issues. It’s my baggage and I own it, but I couldn’t handle losing you. I just couldn’t.”
I couldn’t either. I don’t ever want to feel like I have these past few days. “You have me. We have each other. I won’t break your trust again. You’ll see.”
“So you’re cool not hanging out with other guys? Slice included.”
I roll toward him, covering my breasts with my arm. “But I told you—”
“I need to protect myself.”
I see that. The way he needs to keep his heart safe. The same way I need to guard my own. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
I nod. I want the two of us locked together. No outside world. No people. No pressure. Our own paradise.
“I’m enough for you?” he asks.
“More than enough.” I reach out, stroke my hand down the hard cut of his chest muscles.
He glides his hand over my bottom, pulls me to him. “You make me happy.”
But I am the happy one. With him, so close. Even closer when he admits his weaknesses. He holds me and I’m grateful for our openness, our willingness to negotiate all the terms that will keep us safe.
“Now that we’re okay again, we probably don’t need this dress, right?” His shy grin plays at his mouth.
“Probably not.”
Alec moves on the bed, slips my dress from my waist. My heart races. He kisses a trail up and then down my body, guiding my underwear off my hips. I twist to cover myself as he stands at the end of my bed, unbuttons his jeans. His look asks, Is this all right?
Is it?
Am I ready?
I nod, holding my breath. He slides his jeans off his hips and they fall to the floor with a dull, weighted whoosh. Then he pulls down his boxers and I don’t hear them drop. I can only process Alec, stripped before me, every inch of him exposed. Fear and excitement intertwine in a rope inside me.
Alec slicks up the length of the bed, links his bare leg with mine. My stomach flutters. My skin craves the blanket of him. And fears it.
“I can’t,” I say.
“I know. I want your first time to be special. More than special.”
Relief hisses from my lungs. “I want that too.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy making up.” He presses his body into mine and the rush is so fast and sweeping that his hands build a white light in my head that threatens to explode.
He whispers in my ear, “I’m glad you like the way I touch you.”
I hear myself answer from some faraway existence. “I like it so much.”