“Are you sure you want to skip lunch?” His eyes pin me and a thrill runs across my flesh. “You drive me out of my mind when you look at me the way you did crossing the parking lot. All glowing and smiling and happy to see me. It gave me a fucking hard-on before you even touched me. You know if we go to my room you’re skipping the rest of the day, don’t you? You’re staying here until you have to go home.”
I nod. He climbs from the driver’s seat, comes around the car, opens my door and takes my hand.
He guides me to the gate and punches in a code to open the gardeners’ entrance.
I watch him click it softly closed behind us. “Pretty convenient thing that back gate. Something tells me you’ve done this before, Bobby.”
He slants me a look. “Is that what you think?”
The gaze he fixes on me instantly quashes the giddiness that’s claimed me since leaving school.
Fuck, I’ve pissed him off.
I shrug in a way that I hope looks indifferent, but a blush creeps onto my cheeks. “Let’s not do that thing where we tell each other every detail about our past sexual experiences. I so don’t want to know how many girls you’ve been with.”
We stand in the far side of the yard, staring into each other’s eyes, both of us weirdly frozen when only a moment ago we’d been racing toward the pool house, hot for each other.
I shift my gaze to the ground. “Can we just do this? I don’t want to fight.”
“Nope, not letting that one go,” he whispers. “I’m not some asshole jerk player. You should know that by now. And if we can’t be honest with each other about everything, then what’s the point in going any farther, Kaley? I’d rather turn around now and drive you back to school. And you brought it up, the sexual history question. I’m going to answer you and if you’re cool with my answer, then we can see where we go from there. Agreed?”
Fighting to insulate myself against his change of mood, I nod, and when he lifts a brow I say, “Yes,” but it comes out harsh and petulant.
“I’ve done a lot of things sexually. I won’t lie to you about that. I’m as into sex as any guy.”
Fuck.
Not the answer I wanted.
Disquieting sensations from my stomach lodge in my throat. “I’m sure you have done a lot sexually,” I shoot back, my voice heavy with sarcasm. “I get it. You’re a hot guy. Popular. You don’t date. But I never thought it meant you didn’t fuck as much as you can. This is hardly a news flash, Bobby.”
His gaze combs my face as if irritated and trying to decide how to deal with me. I carefully avoid his eyes because I can feel that my features are tense and awash with overly exposed hurt about hearing of Bobby’s exploits.
Fuck, what’s wrong with me? It’s ridiculous to get hurt because what he did before me isn’t about me, but his talking about it is suffocating me.
Stupid, Kaley. Why did you start this?
“Whatever I’ve done doesn’t matter. Because it was never complete. Not even close to complete. I’ve never felt about any girl the way I feel about you. You’re different from every girl I’ve ever been with, Kaley.”
Before I can rally a response, his arms slip around me, pulling me close and he’s bending low to kiss me. His mouth is urgent and bruising on mine, not gentle and moving with me in a perfectly matching flow, the way we kiss when we’re fucking each other with our tongues.
His tongue sweeps through my mouth as one hand runs up the side of my face, and then his fingers in my hair clutch the back of my head.
He pulls away, breathless, his lips against my ear. “But I’m into limits and you’re into control and sometimes you make it fucking nearly impossible to be the guy I want to be with you. You think we’re here because you’ve decided it’s time we should fuck. You have no idea how much I want to. How fucking out of my mind you get me. How many times a day I jerk off thinking about you and what it’s going to be like when we’re finally together. But I didn’t bring you here to fuck you.”
What?
I step back from him, but the fence stops me.
I cross my arms, humiliated and confused. “Then what was all that nonsense about not going back to school today if we go into your bedroom?”
“I don’t want our first time together to be in my bedroom. That doesn’t mean I don’t want to spend as much time alone with you as I can. Maybe push up against the limits until the time is right for both of us to make love.”
I stare at him, my mouth dropping, frustrated in every way, not just my body. “Right time? You had a pretty fucking nice erection five minutes ago and I was pretty fucking ready to do this. It doesn’t get more right time than that. I’ve already let you know that I want to.”
“We’re not doing it today. I can tell, Kaley, that you haven’t gone all the way before. But here’s a news flash. I haven’t either. I’ve done a lot of things—two people can get off in a lot of ways together without fucking—but I’ve never fucked a girl because I wanted my first time to mean something. I wanted it to be with someone I love. But I also wanted it to mean something to the girl I shared it with.”
I stare at him, stunned.
“You’ve never had sex before?” I ask, unable to hide how floored I am by this admission.
This time he steps back from me, raking his fingers through his hair. “Not completely. I want the milestones of my life to mean something. Not just be something I do, move on, and forgot about. I want my first time to be with someone I can see in my life long-term. I want it with a girl I love. I want it with you. I’ve never believed in anything the way I believe in the possibility of us.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth he’s completely discomposed. He looks both nervous and embarrassed—the vision he makes melts my heart and douses my temper. My tough, extreme sports, hot surfer boy all sensitively heavy, laying bare his soft underside.
I lift my hand and stroke his cheek. “That’s about the sweetest thing any guy has ever said to me.”
He stares down at the ground, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. “There is only a handful of moments in everyone’s life that really matter. Not enough of them to waste.”
My eyes scroll over his features, taking in everything written there that Bobby hasn’t said. We’ve talked about him being adopted and he denies that it matters to him…but oh, Bobby, you are wrong. It’s why you are so careful about the people you care about. You need things to matter because a piece of you is incomplete like me, but unlike me, you can’t get that part of you back.
My eyes widen. “So if you’re not going to do me, why are we here?”
He looks up, laughing in a rough, half-frustrated and half-amused sort of humor. I can tell by the way he’s studying me that if I kiss him, he’d let me, this would be over and we’d be on the way to his room to do whatever.
“I just want to spend some time alone with you. And I definitely want to push up against those limits as far as we can, as far as it’s right, for the both of us. Fighting with you only makes me hornier than hell.”
I can’t help but smile at him. “Me, too. Do you still want to hold me hostage in your bedroom until I have to go home?”
Ah.
Instant spark in his eyes.
“More than you know,” he says, his voice thick and breathy. “Even as pissed off as you got me, my erection didn’t go away. Not completely.”
This time I laugh.
I move in to him, lifting my lips to his, and then we’re kissing, hot and frantic. His hands run down my back to my butt, and he picks me up. I wrap my arms and legs around him, and he starts carrying me toward his room.
I drag my mouth from his, trailing down his neck with my lips and tongue. I make a light nip and his body shudders as he sucks in a full chest of air.
I swirl my tongue and then lift my face. “Limits, huh? You don’t want to rethink that one, Bobby? I’m pretty much a sure thing today.”
Low laughter makes his chest shimmy against me. “Don’t make this a competition, Kaley. I want our first time to be what we both deserve. Respecting the limits today is going to be really hard.”