“Fuck.” My head drops back against the cushion.
He drags one finger through me with a patience that makes me want to scream. My thighs fall open wider. He does it again. And again. Learning me. Finding the spots that make me twitch and the ones that make me gasp.
“So wet,” he murmurs against my neck, and the words send heat flooding up my chest and into my face.
So much for playing it cool. But the way he says it—like it’s doing something to him, not just something he noticed—makes the embarrassment dissolve into something hotter.
His thumb finds my clit, skin on skin now, and starts a rhythm that makes my vision blur at the edges.
I need to tell him. Before this goes further. Before I lose the ability to form sentences.
“Johnny.” My voice shakes. “I need to tell you something.”
His hand stills. His eyes find mine immediately, and I watch him brace for something bad.
“I’ve never done this before.” I hold his gaze even though I want to look anywhere else. “Any of this. I’m a virgin.”
Silence. His hand slides out of my underwear, settling on my hip instead, and the loss of contact makes me shiver.
His expression goes through three things in quick succession: surprise, then something fierce and possessive that he visibly wrestles down, then a tenderness that makes my ribs ache.
“Your father,” he says. Not a question.
“Never let me date. Never let me get close to anyone.” I shrug one bare shoulder. “Can’t have anyone ‘sullying the merchandise’.”
His nostrils flare. A vein pulses at his temple, and his hand on my hip tightens just enough that I feel each individual finger press into my skin. For one beat he’s not the man who makes me laugh. He’s the one who came home with blood drying on his knuckles.
Then he exhales, long and deliberate, and his grip softens. When his eyes find mine again, the storm has passed.
“Then we go slow, Nat.” His thumb traces my hip. “And you tell me the second anything doesn’t feel good. Promise me.”
“I promise.”
He leans down and kisses me again. Softer this time, like he’s resetting. Starting over.
His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw, down the side of my neck, and I feel my body unclench beneath him. By the time hisfingers trail back down my stomach, I’m arching into his touch before he even gets there.
He starts slow, easing one finger inside me. Shallow strokes, barely moving, letting me adjust to the feel of him. Each one goes a little deeper. My breathing changes, quickens, and my grip on his shoulder loosens as the strangeness melts into something warm and liquid and good.
“Okay?” he murmurs against my neck.
More than okay. I rock my hips against his hand and he takes the cue, pressing deeper, and then he curls his finger and finds a spot along the front wall that makes my hips buck off the cushion.
“Right there.” I barely recognize my own voice. “Oh god, right there.”
He works that spot while his thumb circles my clit, and the dual sensation is so far beyond anything I’ve done alone in the dark that I almost laugh at every fantasy I ever thought was good enough. This is a different language. This is someone else’s hands knowing my body better than I do after sixty seconds.
“How are you so good at this?” The words fall out before I can catch them.
His fingers don’t stop. “No idea. Can’t remember ever doing it before.”
I choke on a laugh that turns into a moan, and I can feel the smug bastard grinning against my neck.
My fingers drift toward his zipper. I hesitate there, pulse hammering, and meet his eyes.
He reads the question on my face. “By all means, baby.”
I work the zipper down and free him, and my hand stills.
