I grab both his arms and hold on to him. “Don’t go. Just…” My face burns. “I never… Um. I mean, I haven’t done this before. None of this is coming out the way I want it too.”
He’s so serious, but patient. Endlessly patient. “Take your time, darlin’. I’m not going anywhere.”
I take a breath and release my shame and embarrassment—okay, maybe notallmy embarrassment—in a gusty sigh. “I’ve had sex before, but it wasn’t like this. It wasn’t what I wanted.”
Jeremiah gave me no choice in anything. What he wanted, he got.Always.
“I figured as much,” Vonn says.
I let myself relax when he doesn’t run away. Not that I thought he wouldactuallyrun away, but I’d braced myself for him to decide that maybe I came with too much baggage to want to bother with me after all. “You were my first kiss. Well, the first kiss from someone I really wanted. I want my first time, where I get to choose, to be with you.”
His soft smile warms every part of me.
“You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that. I feel about twenty pounds lighter. I thought I’d done something wrong. Maybe hurt you.”
“You could never hurt me.” I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. I lick my lips, and his chest rumbles with the quiet groan he lets out as his hungry gaze tracks the motion. “But I don’t know what comes next. Or how it’s different when it’s with someone you want.”
“The difference,” he says, punctuating each word with a sweet kiss, “is only doing things that the other person would like.Thisis about making each other feel good.”
“I like the sound of that.”
He settles down on the bed beside me, bracing his weight on one elbow, his left hand skimming my side as his hard, muscled thigh settles between my legs. “So do I, sweetheart.”
As always, whenever he calls me sweetheart or darlin’ in his gruff Southern accent, a part of me melts. “I like it when you call me that.”
He grins. “Then I’ll have to make sure I keep doing it,” he says, and kisses the corner of my mouth. “Twenty.”
“Twenty?” I echo, confused.
“Twenty is how many kisses I intend to cover your body with before I kiss you…here.” His fingers brush the front of my sweatpants.
Through the thick material, I feel the promise of his touch—and his kiss. I shiver. “And how will that feel?”
“Good,” he says, one corner of his mouth tilting in a crooked smile. “At least, I hope you’ll like it enough you might want me to keep on kissing you there.”
“And if I don’t?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
His smile fades. “Then I stop, help you dress, and take you to your room. It all ends the second you stop being comfortable with anything we do together. That’s the difference between what you had before and what you’ll get from me.”
“Okay, then.”
The first kiss is deep, searing my lips and making my eyes flutter closed.
I start counting kisses as he works his way down from my mouth. My right cheek. Left cheek. Chin. Jaw. The hollow of my throat.
His fingers are gentle as he pulls the clothes from my body, and I briefly forget to keep counting when his next two kisses linger on my breasts.
As he kisses his way downward, my skin overheats and I struggle to breathe.
I have completely lost track of time, never mind what number of kisses we’re on when he tugs down my sweatpants and my panties, and nudges my thighs aside.
My eyelids flutter open.
Vonn lying between my naked thighs doesn’t make me want to cover up, embarrassed to reveal every inch of myself to him like this. Vonn looks at me like I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. So, I feel beautiful.
With his eyes holding mine, he says, “Twenty,” quietly, and puts his mouth on me.
I stop breathing, even as I grab his head, and a low, husky moan, a sound I have never made in my life, tears from my throat.
