Something I’d never done before in my life. Not with a partner… Not with anyone.
So I kissed him because I couldn’t look at him. Not yet. If I did, I was scared I’d see something I wasn’t ready for.
Or worse—something I already felt that I didn’t want to admit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LINCOLN
A few hoursafter the hottest thing I’d ever been lucky enough to witness, I lay next to Willa in the dark. Since falling apart on top of me, she’d been scarce. She’d scurried off my lap and immediately headed up to shower. Then she’d kept herself busy being anywhere but around me.
This was the first time in hours she’d been in my vicinity for more than thirty seconds. I was surprised her stubborn ass had crawled into bed instead of setting up camp outside just so she could avoid me a bit longer.
Apparently, though, the cloak of darkness was avoidance enough.
The lights were off, she’d put away her book, and she lay as still as a corpse beside me. The room had settled into the kind of quiet that usually put me to sleep in thirty seconds flat. But tonight? I couldn’t stop grinning.
I could still feel the imprint of her fingers digging into my shoulders, her breath hot against my lips, and the sounds she’d made when she’d shuddered and shaken above me, grinding her way to the kind of orgasm people wrote books about. All while we were both fully clothed.
So, yeah. I was pretty damn proud of myself.
“I can feel your smugness all the way over here,” she muttered, breaking the silence.
I smirked toward the ceiling. “That obvious?”
“You’re basically vibrating with it.”
“Can’t help it. I have a hell of a lot to be smug about.” I tucked the arm closest to her behind my head and turned my face in her direction. “You remember. You were there.”
There was a long, quiet pause. Then she muttered, “You don’t even know the half of it.”
I raised one brow, my interest piqued. “What’s that mean?”
“Nothing,” she said. Way too fast for it toactuallybe nothing.
“Oh, come on. I just watched you come all over me, and you felt me blow my load in my pants like I was fifteen?—”
“Oh mygod. Would you stop?”
“Nah. All the walls are down now, hellcat. Might as well tell me.”
“Why are you like this?”
“Charming and irresistible? Some of us are just born with it, I guess. Now, come on. Give me a hint.”
Willa blew out an irritated sigh. “Lincoln?—”
“One word. I can guess with one word.”
“I swear to god, I’m going to?—”
“How about just a syllable, then?”
“Fine, you giant man-child!God.” She huffed, slamming her arms down on the bed, clearly sick of my shit. “That was the first time that’s happened, all right?”
“Ohreally,” I said, unable to tamp down just exactly how pleased that made me. The first time she’d come from a dry hump? Hell yeah, I’d take that honor all the way to the bank.
“You are theworst,” she snapped. “And, great, now that I’ve told you, I’m going to be forced out of my own home by your egoandyour exceptionally large head.”
