Yeah, staying in for dinner had been a good call.
Still. “Eating dinner in bed. Naked.” She cocked her brow at him. “This is something you do all the time?”
He was sitting opposite her on the bed with their dinner plates between them. Somehow or other, they’d managed to split the sheet so it draped over his lap with enough left over for her to tuck the other end under her arms. All the important parts were covered, but it still felt illicit. Obscene.
Sexy.
Shrugging, he took a bite of his sandwich and chewed. “It’s not exactly a first. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say I do it all the time.”
That dip was coming in her stomach. The little lurch that happened every time he reminded her that she was one of many.
Only then the corner of his mouth curled upward. “Can’t say it’s ever been this much fun before, though.” He wiped his fingers on his napkin before reaching out to drag the back of a knuckle down the bare length of her arm. “Or that the view has ever been so good.”
The anxious dip turned into a flutter. She dropped her gaze to stare at her own sandwich. He did this to her every time. Made her feel like she was special, when really she was just one of the herd.
“Hey.” He gave her a second, then hooked his finger under her chin to tilt her head up. “Where did you go there?”
“Nowhere.” She tried to smile.
Those piercing blue eyes stared back at her. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Don’t have a lot of practice, I suppose.”
He cupped her face and swiped his thumb across her lip. “Good. I like you like this. All fresh-faced and innocent.”
She shook her head. Kissed his thumb before batting his hand away. “Says the man who’s been doing everything in his power to corrupt me.”
“Not everything.” His eyes twinkled. “But a lot of things.” His grin receded as he poked at what was left of his pile of fries. “Haven’t pushed it too far, I hope.”
It didn’t quite lilt up as a question, but she heard it as one all the same.
And she could do this. She could talk about the things they’d done. There didn’t have to be any shame to it—even if something cold and uncomfortable threatened to unfurl in her lungs. “I—I don’t regret anything. If that’s what you’re asking.”
“It’s something a guy likes to know.” His one shoulder quirked upward and then settled back down.
“I don’t regret it.” She put more conviction into the words this time, because she didn’t. No matter the heartbreak that was bound to come. It had been . . . amazing. Like nothing she’d ever experienced before. She was glad she’d get to hold on to that. “You were really good to me.”
He made a little huffing sound and tore at the bread of his sandwich. “I am never going to stop being angry about the fact that anybody ever wasn’t good to you. If you—” He cut himself off, fingers clenching into a fist before he relaxed them. “I hope you never let anyone treat you like that. Not ever again.”
Right. The little dip in her stomach was back, twisting her insides up. He was talking about the other men she’d sleep with, after she left.
“I won’t.” It sounded too solemn, but there it was. Out on the air between them.
She’d promised it to herself once before, but it had been an abstract then. Now she knew how good she could’ve been getting all along. How terrible the bad had been by comparison.
“Besides.” Her voice threatened to crack, and was she really going to do this? “There were only a couple of other guys,” she blurted. “Before.”
Apparently, she was.
Rylan paused. “Yeah?”
She’d told him that much their very first night. He’d prodded her then, clearly wanting her to tell him more about them, but she’d shied away. Now, though . . . She’d let him inside of her, had given up the one thing she’d been the most afraid to. She could give him just a little bit more.
“One was a hookup,” she said, testing the words on her tongue. “I don’t think I even got his name.”
A month after things between her and Aaron had fallen apart, her friends had decided that enough was enough. They’d told her it was damn well time for her to pick herself up. Get back on the horse. Move on.
So they’d taken her to a club and bought her drinks all night. She’d caught a guy’s eye, and she’d been so starved for the attention, she’d let him dance in close behind her. And when he’d asked her if she wanted to get out of there . . .
“I was . . . drunk. Not so drunk that I don’t remember it or anything, but enough that I was maybe not making the best of decisions.” She focused hard on picking at the crust of her bread so she didn’t have to meet his gaze. Or show that her hands were trembling. “He was . . . fine. But he’d been drinking, too. Everything moved way too fast.” She shrugged. “And when he was done, that was kind of the end of it.”
It’d been the end of her interest in sex. Right up until she’d met Rylan.
“Asshole,” he said, quiet but intense. It made her shiver.
But it also made her want to tell him everything else. She wanted him to hear it all, to know it all. She hadn’t done anything wrong. But God. What she’d let herself become. How little she’d accepted for so long. It made her gut twist and clench, made her throat ache, even after all this time.
“The guy before that . . . Aaron.” She gave up on her dinner. She’d more or less had enough of it anyway, and just thinking about this made her stomach turn to stone. She pushed her plate away and curled her hands together in her lap. “He was my first. First really long-term relationship, you know? I’d dated here and there in high school, but nothing serious. Definitely not anybody I’d . . . have sex with.”
Rylan made an encouraging noise.
She drew her knees in close to her chest, hugging them tight. “He was smart. A business major. Really practical and driven.” Goal-oriented was how he’d put it. The exact opposite of her with all her dreams about galleries and art. “Took me on nice dates and stuff.” She paused when Rylan put his sandwich down, something in his gaze darkening. But he didn’t try to interrupt her, so she soldiered on. “After a couple of months, he started wanting more, and I did, too.” A dark chuckle bubbled up in her throat. “I was a twenty-year-old virgin, you know?”
Part of her had been terrified, as much by the relationship as by the sex. Her parents’ marriage had been less of an example and more of a cautionary tale, and she’d carried the metaphorical scars with her for years. Still carried them, really.
Another part of her had just wanted to get it over with.
“He wasn’t awful in bed or anything, but when he . . . did stuff, it never worked. I’d get turned on, and we . . . had sex. But.” Her tongue had gone all twisted up, and her face felt hot, her neck cold. Why couldn’t she just talk about this stuff? “I couldn’t come.”
“What?” Rylan looked at her with confusion, a displeased furrow coloring his brow. “He never fingered you or ate you out?”
The heat on her cheeks deepened, flowing down her chest. God. He said it like it wasn’t dirty or weird or wrong at all.
Maybe because it wasn’t.
“He did,” she said. “Sometimes. It just didn’t do anything for me.”
“And you never took things into your own hands?”
Her laughter choked off with the force of her embarrassment. “Until you made me, I didn’t even know that was something I could do in front of a guy.” Not without him thinking she was a slut, or a pervert. Or who knew what else.
He’d finished up his sandwich by then, and he leaned over, the sheet sliding off his lap as he twisted to set his plate down on the floor. Sitting up again, he scooted closer to her, letting their bare legs brush beneath the covers. “Kate.” He coaxed her to unfurl herself and took her hand in his, the skin warm and vital and strong. “I told you. There is nothing in this world sexier than a woman feeling pleasure.”