“We’re going to be great at it.”
He catches my hand. “You’re getting way ahead of yourself.”
“I’m always ahead of myself. You should know that by now.” I squeeze his fingers. The joke is sitting right there on my tongue. I know it’s a joke, but I also know it isn’t. “You know we actually have to have sex to make those kids, right?”
I watch his eyes go wide but they don’t leave mine. Oh well. Ten toes in now.
“It’s a required step in the process.” I’m trying to keep the joke lighter, but I’m actually losing my nerve. I’ve been thinking about this way more than the kids thing. “Unless you don’t want to. Which is fine. You can tell me.”
“Mackie—”
“Because we’ve been together for months. We’ve done... stuff. But you’ve never pushed for more. I’ve never actually seen you fully naked.” It comes out smaller than I want it to. “So like, is it me?”
“Mackie. No.” He sits up and pulls me with him. “Where is this coming from?”
“You always stop. Every time.”
“Because I’m terrified of fucking this up.” He runs both hands through his hair. “You’re the first person I’ve ever felt like this about. Every time we’re together, I’m so scared of going too fast or making you uncomfortable that I just default to stopping. I want to respect you.”
“Okay, but I actually want you to disrespect me. Just a little. Enough that you’ll let me see you naked, at least.”
He looks at me. I can see the decision happen—the same quiet, internal calculation I’ve watched him make on the ice—followed by full commitment. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”
I pull him down to me. The second his mouth is on mine, I feel it through my entire body—a full-voltage surge of FINALLY. His tongue slides against mine. His hands are in my hair, then on my waist, then under my shirt. He groans into my mouth, his hips jerking up against mine. I grind down, and we both gasp.
I pull my shirt over my head. He reaches behind me, unclasps my bra, and pulls it away. I’m about to make a joke about his staring habit when he rolls off the bed, drops to his knees on the floor, and pulls me to the edge,
His thumbs hook into the waistband of my leggings, and he looks up at me. Asking. Always asking.
I nod in response.
He pulls them down my legs and then he’s staring at the fabric in his hands like his brain got lost somewhere between my thighs and whatever he was planning to do next.
I reach down and pluck my panties out of the fabric, pressingthem into his hand. “Keep them,” I say. My brain is screaming at me, but I’m too deep to go back now. “For road trips.”
He looks at the lace, then back up at me, ears red. “Are you serious?”
“If you want them.”
He doesn’t say anything. He just folds them carefully, like they’re something important, and sets them on the nightstand. Somehow, that’s hotter than anything he could have said. He didn’t try to be smooth about it; he just treated it like I’d handed him something to take care of.
I pull him up and hook my fingers into the waistband of his sweats. He’s standing in front of me, breathing hard. I can feel his stomach tense under my knuckles. I pull his sweats and boxers down together and?—
“Oh holy shit,” I whisper.
He freezes. “What.”
I’m sitting eye-level with him. My brain has gone completely blank, except for a high-pitched noise in my ears that might be my last remaining brain cells dying.
He reaches for his boxers to pull them back up, but I grab his wrist. “Oh no you don’t. Okay, so. You know how people always say that thing about tall guys? Like shoe size and whatever?”
“Please don’t.”
“I never believed it. I thought it was just something people said. But the first time I held your hand, I remember thinking, huh, I wonder if that’s actually true.”
“Mackie.”
“And it’s true. It is so obviously, undeniably true. I am faced with how true it is right now in this moment.” I reach out and run my finger along the length of him slowly, just barely touching. He twitches under my fingertip.
