I press a full hand against the center of his abdomen and bite my lip. “Is it working?”
The world blurs. Jumbled motions of blankets being kicked off and positions being changed. When everything comes into focus again, I’m laying on my back and Locke is hovering above me. Right hand pinned next to my head, and his left running through his hair. Just like when he entered the apartment earlier.
His wrist flexes under the expensive metal of his watch and I rub my thighs together again.
“This wasn’t why I asked you to come to my bedroom.”
“I know.” I rasp. The thought of him respecting me enough to clarify his intentions sends another surge of desire through me. My knee finds its familiar place between his legs, and I moan. “I want it.”
“You do?” His breaths are shallow, hand moving from his hair to grip my waist. The fabric of my sweater keeps me from feeling him skin to skin.
I whine and start tugging at my top. “Now.”
“Fuck, Rosie.”
I let a moment hang between us, in case he makes a move to stop me. When he doesn’t, I rip my sweater off and throw it somewhere in the depths of his room, where it belongs.
“You’re killing me.” His body moves to lean on his knees. One hand lifts his shirt just slightly, the other, with thatdamned watch, works its way over his crotch in slow, methodical motions.
I’ve never felt want like this. So charged, slick dampening the space between my legs and a large cloud of heat encasing us. My eyes follow every movement he makes and my body lights up with each inch of skin he exposes, from his defined hip bone and the dip of his collar.
There are too many clothes between us.
I’m shoving my hands under the waistband of my own pajama pants when Locke speaks again, voice unsteady.
“Wait. We need to have a talk first. Before we do anything.”
My hands stall. I take a deep breath and gulp. “About what?”
“The usual.” He holds eye contact, like he’s waiting for me to understand, but I don’t. I scan my brain for what he means and nothing comes up. After a long stretch of silence, his green eyes go wide. “Consent, Rosalie. We need to discuss consent.” My confusion lives alone before his hand flexes again, and heat emerges beside it. “We need to discuss what you like, too. So I can make this good for you. Exactly how you want.”
There’s a sharp intake. I’ve never had either of those talks before.
“Okay… How would we go about that?”
Shock passes through Locke’s expression.
“You’ve never had a consent talk before sex?” I shake my head. He sighs, exasperated. “Boys. You’ve dated a bunch of immature boys before me.”
It’s hot all over again. The rough tone of his voice and flex of his jaw tightens muscles in my body I didn’t know I had. Before I can stop myself, I whine and pull at his top.
“Hurry with the talks. I’m getting impatient.”
Locke releases a laugh and tugs my hand to his mouth for a kiss. “You’re in charge, okay? You tell me to wait, I wait. You say stop, I stop. We don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
He kisses the skin of my palm in between sentences and my heart melts. There wasn’t a world where I ever doubted those things of him.
“Got it. We don’t do anything you don’t want to, either.” He nods and leaves one last kiss on my thumb before I spit out impatiently, “Next?”
He stares down at me. I’ve thought about his eyes so many times, I swore I had them memorized. But they’re a different shade of green now—darker, more intense.
“What do you like? How do you want it?”
The wind gets knocked out of me. I’ve thought about this, too. My imagination has it down to a science—how he would treat me in the folds of a bedsheet and bring me to the ends of pleasure.
I almost don’t tell him. The Locke I’ve come to know doesn’t completely fit the mold I’ve created in my mind. Real-life Locke hides behind his glasses and stumbles over his words when he’s not comfortable.
I’m not sure fantasy Locke—who grips me to the point of bruising and calls me names I’d never allow anyone else to—can exist anywhere but inside my mind.
