Suddenly, that mattered so much. Suddenly, she was terrified.
The rain was loud on the roof of the trailer, their breathing heavy. “Take me,” she whispered.
“Not quite yet,” he said, and he kissed her again, deep and maddeningly slow.
“Come on,” she said, moving her hands to his belt. “We don’t have to make a meal out of this.”
“We absolutely do,” he said, putting his hand over the top of hers. “I’ve wanted to do this for years. And I will take my damn time, Jessie Jane Hancock. You said you wanted to fuck. And I want that too. But we’ll do it on my terms.”
“I didn’t agree to that.”
He moved his hand around to the back of her head, held her steady as he looked into her eyes. “What are you in such a hurry for?”
She wanted to look away from him. She didn’t want to feel this. Not this deep. Not this real. “I …”
“Don’t be scared of me, Jessie. We both knew this was inevitable. We were silly to try to fight it for so long.”
Maybe he thought it was inevitable. But she never had. She had thought maybe she could stay protected in a cocoon of her own for years and years.
Forever.
And suddenly she was shivering, shaking. On the verge of something she didn’t have words for.
“Jessie?”
She closed her eyes and grabbed his face, went back in for a kiss. She kissed him so fiercely, she couldn’t think. Yes. This was what she wanted. What she needed. Fast and hard. She needed to not think about it. She needed to not feel.
He pulled back, and he was breathing hard and heavy. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re talking too much,” she said. Her mouth felt foreign to her, like a stranger’s. Her lips were swollen from kissing him. From desire.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m just impatient.”
“You look scared. And I don’t want to have sex with a woman who’s afraid of me.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Jessie …”
And suddenly, the truth bubbled up inside her. Because she had brazened things out all her life. If a person persisted, kept on pressing, you just had to admit it. And act as if it wasn’t a big deal.
“I’ve never done this before,” she said. “But I’m impatient, so let’s get it going.”
“Stop,” he said, putting his hand over hers, square in the center of his chest. “What do you mean you’ve never done this before?”
“Sex. I’ve never had it before. But that’s not a big deal. I’m ready to have it now.”
“That … that’s not possible,” he said.
He looked dizzy and disoriented. The one thing she could say about her admission was that she had definitely taken some of the power back here, because he obviously had no idea what to say.
No idea what to do.
She might have just dumped a bucket of ice water over what had been a very pleasant encounter.
“Yes, it is. Because I haven’t.”
