I close the distance between us. The first brush of our lips is gentle, a hello after too long apart, even though it’s only been days since the Ferris wheel. Ryan’s breath catches, a tiny sound that vibrates against my mouth, and I feel it everywhere. In my chest, my stomach, lower still, where heat is already beginning to pool.
I deepen the kiss slowly, giving him time to adjust, to pull away if he wants. But Ryan doesn’t. He leans into me, one hand coming up to cup the back of my neck as his fingers thread through my hair. The touch sends sparks cascading down my spine.
He tastes like the sparkling water we drank and something sweeter beneath, something that’s purely him. I trace the seam of his lips with my tongue, and he opens for me immediately, eager and willing, another soft moan escaping into my mouth.
That sound undoes something in me.
Before I can think, before I can consider the implications or the consequences, I’m shifting my weight, rolling until I’m hovering over him. The blanket bunches beneath us, and Ryan’s eyes go wide. Starlight reflects in their hazel depths.
“Is this okay?” I manage to ask, though my voice comes out rough, barely recognizable.
Ryan’s answer nearly kills me.
“I want you to take my virginity, Oliver.”
My ass clenches hard as every muscle in my body locks down in a full-scale emergency response, because Ryan’s words have sent a direct signal from my brain to my cock and balls. And the three of them are having a very urgent conversation about whether we’re going to come right here, right now.
I do not come. But it’s a near thing. The closest of close calls. A photo-finish where dignity beats humiliation by a nostril hair.
“Ryan.” My voice is wrecked. Absolutely destroyed. I sound like I’ve been gargling gravel. “You can’t just—you can’t say things like that without giving a guy a little warning.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while.” His eyes don’t waver.Those hazel irises hold mine with a steadiness that contradicts the rapid pulse I can see hammering in his throat.
I swallow hard enough that I’m sure he can hear it. “What brought this on?”
Ryan’s hand, still threaded through my hair, slides down to rest against the side of my neck. His thumb settles over my pulse point, and I know he can feel how fast my heart is beating.
“I’ve been in love with you since I was ten years old,” he says. “I didn’t have the vocabulary for it then. I just knew that when my dad told us we were moving again, the only thing that made me cry was leaving you. Not the school. Not the house. You.”
The fireflies blink around us, indifferent to the fact that my entire world is rearranging itself.
“I spent a decade pretending it was something else,” Ryan continues. “Nostalgia. Childhood attachment. A coping mechanism for all the instability. I told myself every story except the true one, because the true one was terrifying.” His jaw tightens, then releases. “I’m done pretending, Oliver. I don’t want to fight it anymore.”
“Ryan—”
“If there’s one person in this world I trust to make my first time mean something, it’s you.” His voice cracks on the last word, and I watch him swallow, watch him gather himself. “You’ve never rushed me. You’ve never pressured me. You made sandwiches, found an oldies station, and held my hand while I talked about my dead mother, and you didn’t flinch. Not once.” His eyes are bright, glistening in the starlight. “I want it to be you. Ineedit to be you.”
I close my eyes. Take a breath. Then another. My body is at war with itself—every primal instinct screamingyes, fucking yes!while the part of me that loves this man, genuinely loves him, pumps the brakes hard enough to leave skid marks.
“Ryan.” I open my eyes and cup his face in both hands, thumbs brushing his cheekbones. “I am so honored. You have noidea. And I want to. God, I want to so badly that it’s physically painful right now, and I mean that literally—don’t look down.”
A startled laugh escapes him, and the sound loosens something in my chest.
“But not here,” I say. “Not in the middle of a park where anyone could walk by, on a blanket that’s already got grass stains. Your first time deserves more than that. You deserve a bed, and privacy, and enough time that neither of us has to worry about park rangers or mosquito bites or the fact that I’m ninety percent sure there’s a family of raccoons watching us from that tree.”
Ryan glances involuntarily toward the tree line, then back at me. “You’re serious.”
“Dead serious. When we do this—and wewilldo this—I want it to be right. I want you to remember every second because of how perfect it will be.”
He’s quiet for a moment. I watch the initial flash of disappointment give way to understanding, then something warmer. Gratitude, maybe. Or trust deepening another layer.
“Okay,” he says softly. “I can wait.”
“Good.” I press my forehead against his. “But in the meantime…”
“In the meantime, what?”
I don’t answer with words. Instead, I lower my hips.
