Her pulse roared, escaping her control. She would never have his way with words, but that didn’t mean she didn’t mirror every inch of his intensity. “I love you, too. So, so much.”
He shook his head as if brushing off the sentiment. “Do you understand what I’m telling you? Why I don’t want you to stay here for my sake?”
“Yes.” She brought her hands up to frame his face. “But you’re forgetting something important.”
His jaw flexed beneath her fingers. “What?”
“That it’s just as much my decision as yours. I know how giving you are, how self-sacrificing. It’s what I love about you. But you don’t get to decide what I do next.Ido. And I’m not leaving Henderson without you. Which doesn’t mean I won’t go to NYU, or get my degree. I will. But I want it all at once. New Yorkandyou. Mathandmy other half.”
His eyes glinted, reflecting the starlight. “What if that’s not what life has planned for us?”
“It is. I know it is. And if not, we’llmakeit the plan.”
He lowered his head, tucking his face against her neck, and hugged her with his whole body. “Jesus. Sometimes I don’tknow if you’re overconfident, or just the most formidable person I know.”
“Overconfidence only counts as overconfidence if you surrender before you succeed.”
He laughed soundlessly against her skin. “So that’s it? You’re staying another year, and I can fuck right off if I try to convince you otherwise?”
“I wouldn’t’ve put it that way.” She smiled into his mop of curls. “But yeah, that sounds about right.”
He hugged her tighter. The sky gleamed, bathing them in pearly light.
All of a sudden, Nick seemed to realize how tangled they’d gotten. He sucked in a breath and tugged at her skirt, trying to cover her exposed thighs.
She pushed his hand away. “Leave it.”
He stilled. His breath hitched, his weight pinioning her to the earth. So little separated their bodies. Just her silk panties, then his jeans and boxers. Beneath his clothes lay nothing but smooth, hot skin. At least, Aubrey imagined it as smooth, hot skin. She hadn’t touched him there yet, had never dared.
Now, though, the fervency of his words boiled inside her, cementing a decision she had, until this moment, kept to herself. “There’s one more thing, though. Something I want way before New York.”
He shifted. “What?”
“I want to... be with you. I want you to be my first.”
He made a strangled sound. “What, right now?”
“No. But soon.”
A fine tremble took hold in his limbs. A quarter century slipped by while she awaited his answer. Finally, he said, “You’re sure?”
“Completely.”
He buried his face in the side of her neck again. “If you’re counting on me being chivalrous enough to turn you down, you’re going to be disappointed.”
She laughed. “Chivalry is overrated.”
“No, it’s not.” His breath tickled her skin, igniting heat in places she’d dreamed of asking him to touch.
“It is if it’d make you say no,” she said. “Because I want you. And I want our first time to be special.”
“You mean not when other people are fucking thirty feet away?”
She paused. Sure enough, the neighbors’ conversation had given way to rhythmic rustling and bitten-back moans. “Yeah. Somewhere where it’s just us. Not with my parents upstairs, either. Which means we might have to wait for the right opportunity. If you’re okay with that.”
“I’d wait a century, if you needed me to.” Naked reverence filled his voice as he brought his face to hers. “And doing this with you... it’d be my honor.”
“And mine.”
