Her shaky inhale echoes in my ears as time slows around us, her body sinking down onto mine, melting in my arms.
Her words are raw and honest. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?” I study her eyes, trying to read the secrets locked in her mind. “Any fear you have is a fear we’ll conquer together. I didn’t choose you, Lainey. It’sonlyever been you. Nothing is going to change that. I promise.”
She nods painfully, like she’s trying to force herself to believe my words. “What if something goes wrong between us? What if you change your mind? What if?—”
I stretch upward, silencing her doubt with my kiss, pressing my lips to hers. Sliding my hand up her back, I cup the back of her head, deepening the kiss as her mouth moves against mine.
“What if,” I murmur, “everything works out?”
Her eyebrows are squeezed together; her face is contorted in pain as she fights the mental walls in her mind.
This is a bizarre twist in our relationship, where I’m the optimistic one and she’s the pessimistic one.
“What if”—I press my lips to hers again, kissing her tenderly—“this was how we were always supposed to end up?”
Her bottom lip quivers as her hands trail up my chest, wrapping around my neck. “I like that version.”
“Me too,” I whisper against her lips as our gravity seals our confessions with a kiss.
Tender, soft, loving caresses consume us, intensifying with each passing touch. Her hands wander my neck, shoulders, sliding down my chest and fisting my shirt.
“Fuck,” I grunt as her hips grind against me.
Holy shit, Lainey’s grinding on top of me, and I feel like I might be dreaming.
When I roll my hips up into her, she whimpers into my mouth, and I realize how hard it’s going to be to last longer than five seconds with her.
I’m letting her lead the show. As much as I don’t want to hold back and show her just how badly I’ve wanted her, I’m scared to trigger her like I did last time, especially when I don’t know what tonotdo.
“You’re so fucking perfect,” I murmur between kisses and short gasps for air.
Her grasp tightens, holding on to my shirt tightly as her hips and sweet center continue to slide against my growing erection, one she certainly feels, clenching down harder around it.
“You’re so big,” she whispers, her voice raspy and sexy as hell, making my dick twitch and blood rush through my body.
“Fuck,” I whimper into her mouth helplessly. “I can’t wait to feel you, baby.”
She pauses for a second, almost indiscernibly, but I still catch it.
“There’s no rush for anything tonight, Lain,” I assure her, pulling back enough to try to read her face.
Her lips are parted, breath ragged and needy. “I-I want to.”
Even though she says that, I want to make damn sure that she knows she never has to do anything she doesn’t vehemently desire. “Seriously, there is no pressure with me—ever,” I reiterate.
She nods slowly. “I know. But I want to. Ireallywant to.”
Her eyes drift closed, and I slowly cup her cheek. “Then I’m going to need you to keep those eyes open. I want you to watch every single second of us together.”
She wets her bottom lip and bites down. Her pupils are shot with desire, her chest flushed, but there’s still a tension I can feel in her body, a rigidness and hesitancy that I don’t quite understand.
I don’t know who or what put this trauma into her body when it comes to sex, but I know that I never want her to experience it with me. An idea pops into my mind.
“Do you trust me?” I ask her, looking up into her pretty blue eyes.
She nods. “Yes.”
