“Aaron.”
“Ruby.”
“Aaron,forreal.”
“Ruby,forreal.”
I groaned and fell back on his bed with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling like it would give me magical steel balls I’d been missing my entire life. The mattress dipped and I didn’t need to see Aaron’s face to know he was right beside me… moving closer to my hip from the way the bed moved and from the heat hittingmyskin.
His hand landed on the hand I had resting on my stomach, and he made a little sound. “Tell mewhat’sup.”
Did I want to look him in the eye as I said what I wanted to say? No. Notreally.
ShouldI?
That answer to that was anunfortunateyes.
Sliding my elbows up over the comforter I’d just realized had been neatly made at some point, I propped myself up and let out the deep breath I hadn’t noticed I’d been holding. I’d brushed my teeth and rinsed out my mouth while I’d been in the bathroom, so there was that at least. Those brown eyes were on me and intent, and his mouth twisted just enough for that dimple of histopop.
Now or never, Ruby. It wasgametime.
Swallowing the grapefruit in my throat, I pretty much whispered, “Can I sleep with youtonight?”
Brown eyesblinked.
Now or never, I repeated to myself. The world was for thestrong.
So I kept going. “And by sleep, I mean later-later, if you know whatImean.”
He knew what I meant. He always knew what Imeant.
“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” I rushed out, feeling my imaginary tiny, balls rolling away andhiding.
Pink and red crept up from the collar of Aaron’s T-shirt, going up, up,upas he sat there on his heels, looking at me like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. I couldn’t either. Slipping my hand out of his grasp, I raised both my fists to my eyes and let out a moan. “We can just pretend I didn’t say that too. That’s an option. That’s probably our best option. You know what? Let’s dothat.Deal?”
His chuckle wasn’t immediate. It took a few seconds for it to rumble out of him, all content like a big cat. At the same time, the mattress sank and shook even more. His body heat reached me from my toes to my hair. My hands were moved away from my face gently, and when I felt the bed dip right beside my head, I opened one eye to find Aaron leaning over me, his dimple all out, basically ready to demolishmylife.
And he was smiling even though his neck was pink and he looked like he was torn between several different emotions I couldn’t exactlypinpoint.
It was my turn to blink. “What are yousmilingat?”
He laughed. Loud. “Someone’s inamood.”
I closed my eyes and groaned. “So, how about thatbonfire?”
Aaron laughed again, the entire length of his body stretched beside mine, and I found myself peeking at him again. The hand he was holding to prop himself up moved, shifting over to cup my cheek as he kept on grinning, those brown eyes bouncing from one of mine to the next. “Ruby girl, we’re not pretending that didn’thappen.”
“What?”
“That. Whatyousaid.”
Keeping my face neutral, I let my eyes completely open and shrugged under his stare. “I don’t know what you’re talkingabout.”
His chuckling made me smile even though I didn’t want to. “You fried my brain there for a sec,” he explained calmly, smiling down at me like I was the most entertaining thing in the world. Or the dumbest. “You can’t say that to me and expect me to be able to thinkafterward.”
“I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that,” I tried backpedaling with an apology. “We don’thaveto—”
Aaron kissed me. Not a peck. He went in there. His mouth molding to mine, his tongue lapping at my upper lip for all of a second before I let him in. And just like that, we were making out with him hovering over me. He kissed me and kissed me, going deeper with each movement of his tongue. From one side to the next, kissing andkissingme.
