“But I want to know! Did you see how he pressed her against the car? That was so hot.”
My face was on fire. “Umm, no. We haven’t.”
“Why not?” Poppy asked, looking as if I had stolen her favorite toy.
“I want to,” I said quietly. I knew no one could hear us, but I still felt like this subject required hushed voices. “With the other two guys gone, I thought Theo and I might…”
“Tonight?” Poppy squealed loudly.
“Shh,” I said, lunging at Poppy.
“No one can hear us,” she said, laughing.
“Theo is upstairs,” I hissed.
“Okay, fine, fine. I’ll be quiet,” Poppy said.
“So you’re thinking tonight?” Clementine asked gently.
“I don’t know,” I groaned, flopping back on the mat. “I’m scared.”
“What are you scared of?” Clementine asked, her eyes wide.
“Mostly that I’ll freak out… that it will remind me of what happened at the DA.” My voice was a hoarse whisper, my gaze focused on a crack in the cement brick wall.
Clementine’s hand gently landed on top of mine. “I don’t know exactly what you went through, but I’m sorry it happened.”
I nodded, still averting my gaze.
“There’s no rush to do it,” Westin said gently. “Do you feel like they’re pressuring you?”
“No, not at all,” I said, biting my lip. “But I think I want to do it? I don’t know.” I covered my face with my arms. “I want to have sex with Theo. With all of them. I don’t want what happened at the DA to control me, to make me scared forever. But what if I lose it on him?”
“So what if you do?” Poppy said. “If he’s worthy of you, he’ll understand and be kind about it.”
I shifted my arms to glance at Poppy.
“Look, I don’t know what happened at the DA after I left, but I’ll never forget what you looked like when I saw you after you got out. You scared the shit out of me. It was like you were dead. And the past few weeks, it feels like you’ve come back to life again,” Poppy said. I was shocked to see her brush away a tear. “There’s nothing wrong with you for being scared. I had issues trusting my alphas at first. The DA really messed us up.”
“You did?” I asked, sitting up to face Poppy. She had such a vibrant sex life and her relationship with her alphas seemed so fun and easy.
“Yeah. I freaked out anytime I was alone. I cried a lot. And they didn’t really know what to do, but they were there and kept trying. They earned my trust over time. Remember that I’ve been with them for almost three years now. We weren’t like this at the beginning.”
It hadn’t dawned on me that someone as confident and carefree as Poppy could have struggled, too. She scooted closer to me and ran her hand through my hair. I leaned into her, something I wouldn’t have been able to do a few months ago.
“Okay, so hypothetically, if I decided to have sex with him tonight, what would I do? I don’t want to mess it up,” I said, glancing at Westin and Clementine.
“You can’t mess up sex,” Westin said with a small smile. “As long as it feels good and you’re comfortable, it’s right.”
“But what if he doesn’t think I’m attractive?”
My friends snorted and rolled their eyes.
“I’m serious!”
“Josie, come on. They already know what you look like. And you’re fucking hot,” Poppy said with a confidence I didn’t have.
“I don’t know what to do to make it good for him,” I confessed.
