“Ditto,” she said, her voice small and cute. She trailed her fingers over my pecs, caressing me. “Sex has never been like that for me.”
“Same.” I snuggled her closer, not giving a single shit that I never cuddled. I never pulled partners close to me. I never thought about being inside them as soon as possible. Mack had changed the entire game, and I wanted to win the end of it. “How long do you need to recover?”
“What?” she giggled. “You’re still panting.”
“I know.” I rolled her onto me, smiling so hard I couldn’t stop. “I want to take you in every position possible. All night. With my mouth and cock and fingers.”
“That could be arranged.” She combed her fingers through my hair, a soft look on her face. I closed my eyes and leaned into her caress. “You like me touching you today?”
“Every day.” I kissed her palm. “How’s your pussy? Sore?”
“Eh, it’s a good kind of sore. It’s been a while for me.” She blushed, looking away, like it embarrassed her. Which was ridiculous. If anything, a possessive, jealous inappropriate urge came over me. I wanted to be her only one for a long time.
“Hey,” I said softly. I tilted her chin toward me. “It’s been almost eight months for me.”
“What?” Her eyes bugged out of her head. “Dean, you’retheplayboy—”
“I might’ve been that for the first two and half years here, but that hasn’t been me in a while, and I think you know that.” I said it gently but also with a firmness that showed her it was true. “I’ve done one-night stands, had a lot of hookups—”
Mack winced.
“Sorry, that was crass.”
“I don’t love thinking about you with others, even though this is just a summer fling we agreed to for the list.” She pursed her lips. “Obviously you’ve slept with quite a few people. It’s a fact.”
I frowned. “That’s true, but no one has come close to this, what happened with us. I need you to know that.”
“I do.” She smiled, her gaze softening as she sighed in contentment. “So, what happened for you to stop being so much like Callum?”
She ran her finger over my eyebrow, jaw, then shoulder, a thoughtful look on her face. I loved her expressions, how a twitch of her brow or a curve of her lip gave away her thoughts. “I could tell something happened. Lo hinted as much when she worried about you.”
“I trusted someone who used me from the start. I’m working on moving on, so I don’t want to get into specifics, but she played me, lied to me about becoming pregnant, and reallybroke my trust with everyone. That’s why I’ll never date again. I can’t risk getting hurt.”
“Oh, Dean.” She frowned so hard the lines on her face seemed permanent. “I’m so sorry.” She leaned up and kissed my heart. “That had to be brutal.”
“It was.” My voice clogged up, my emotions that I thought I shoved away sneaking out. “The worst part was preparing to be a father. I… I was excited, as fucked up as it is. So then to have it be fake the whole time?” I closed my eyes.
“You mourned the loss.” She squeezed me. “No one deserves to go through that. Thank you for telling me. That had to be really difficult.”
“It is. I felt like I lost myself and was so damn angry. Then I felt ashamed, like I’d let this happen to me. I’m doing an online therapy session that’s helped a little.”
“Good. You should keep it up. Look.” She pushed up and set her head on her hand, her elbow resting on the bed. Her rainbow hair fell around her face, and there was still a faint redness on her lips. “I hope you realize that you have nothing to be ashamed of. She chose to lie and manipulate, not you. You opened yourself up and trusted her, and she broke that trust. That’s all on her. None of it is on you.”
I caressed her collarbone, running my thumb over it as I sighed. “This is why this list of yours was so fun to join. You wanted to experience things and go wild before senior year, and I wanted to have fun and stop being angry, without the risk of catching feels.”
“You seem less angry.” She stared at me a beat before leaning forward and pressing her lips against mine. “I know we’ll go our separate ways after this summer, but I promise I’d never lie to you or hurt you. While we’re together, I’ll take care of you.”
The ache in my chest intensified, and the ball of emotion inmy throat throbbed to the point of pain. This wastoo much.Way too much.
Distract.
“Come here.” I gripped the back of her head and kissed her hard, biting her lip and teasing her until she moaned. I slid off the bed before spreading her thighs and staring up at her. “I’ll give you your next orgasm with my mouth so you can recover, then I’m taking you again while you watch in the mirror.”
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Mack
