“So don’t date him,” Jia said. “You don’t need to date a guy to have amazing sex. If you want crazy good sex, just fuck him.”
“You two are ridiculous.” I shook my head. “I’m not going to ask someone I barely know to have sex with me. That’s even more embarrassing than the lack of experience I already bring to the table.”
“Suit yourself, Soph. But I bet if you spend a night with a guy like Leo, you’ll realize the problem is not you, it’s the other guys. One night with someone like him and you’ll be feeling confident, trust me,” Jia said.
I sighed.
They’re obviously ridiculous. But isn’t this what college is for? Shouldn’t I seize an opportunity to have an experience like this before real life takes over?
Leo did seem kind of into me and I was pretty sure he was willing to fuck most girls once.
“You haven’t slept with him, right?” I asked Jia. She’d been through enough of the hockey team that it warranted confirmation.
“No!” She shoved my feet off her lap. “I wouldn’t have suggested you sleep with him if I’d already done him.”
I sighed. “I’ll think about it. But you know it would be totally weird, right?”
Alyssa sat down in the chair next to us with a cup of coffee. “I think it might be one of the least weird things ever. College is about hooking up with hot people and finding ourselves. Go find your confidence, Soph. You deserve it.”
I wasn’t entirely sure I agreed with her perspective, but I couldn’t entirely ignore her point either.
Chapter Six
Sophia
I paused for amoment on the second-floor landing before walking down the hall and stopping in front of Leo’s door. According to Jia, he’d been living in this building for years, along with a few of the other hockey guys who must have preferred living away from the townhouses where the rest of the team lived. The giant scarlet and white number twelve on his door confirmed that the room at the end of the hallway was his since that was his jersey number.
Twenty-four hours after my article on him came out Jana had already assigned me another hockey article. Apparently, the first one had been successful—whatever that meant given the short time since its release. She wanted me to do another piece on Leo and include Shawn Rickles this time. Shawn was also going to be a rookie for the Bruins next year, so the idea was to feature them together talking about their hopes for their professional careers.
I’d already emailed Shawn to set up a time to talk to him tomorrow. I should have done the same thing with Leo because that was the appropriate way to handle this situation. Instead, I was trying to find the confidence to knock on his door.
Jia and Alyssa had really gotten to me last night. Despite what they’d said, I’d spent my entire morning workout wondering what was wrong with me.
Why don’t I have wild, sexy nights like the two of them? Why, even when I do start seeing a guy, do our sexual encounters just feel transactional?
Connor and I had started having sex at the end of our senior year. Neither one of us had really known what we were doing, but it hadn’t been terrible. Even when we’d been on separate sides of the continental US and saw each other infrequently, our sexual encounters hadn’t been what you’d expect of two young people passionately in love and apart for months at a time. I’d often walked away wondering why I wasn’t better at pleasing him and when an orgasm with him would feel better than what I could give myself.
The few short flings I’d had since never included sex. I’d fooled around with other guys but had never felt anything close to the passion my friends talked about. At this point, I believed that having a guy go down on you wasn’t nearly as great as everyone made it sound. My vibrator pleased me far more than any guy had ever done with his fingers. It was like they all needed an instruction manual to find a clitoris and nothing was less sexy than having to direct them to the right spot while they were vigorously rubbing at something that was absolutelynotmy clit.
Youknow who finds my clit on the first try, every time? Me.
I had kind of enjoyed giving blowjobs, if for no other reason than I liked the thought of bringing someone to their knees—proverbially speaking since I was the one on my knees—but Connor had never enjoyed them. He’d even gone soft once while I was sucking on him, and it had pretty much crushed my confidence. I’d never been willing to do it with anyone since.
All my self-doubt was starting to get to me, and I wondered if sleeping with Leo, even once, would give me back a little confidence. Worst case scenario, I felt nothing when I was with him either and then I’d know for sure that I was the problem.
When I’d walked into our suite after class today and heard Alyssa going at it with one of her friends with benefits in her room, I thought I was starting to lose my mind. It wasn’t the sounds of two women in the heat of the moment that had bothered me as much as the fact that I was fed the hell up with not experiencing it myself.
Hence where I am right now.
I lifted my hand and rapped twice on Leo’s door before I lost my nerve.
Leo pulled the door open, shirtless. “Hawaii!” he said, like we were long lost friends. “If it’s not the person who wrote the article responsible for this.” He held up his phone—vibrating with incoming notifications, texts, and DMs—and shook it at me. “Rumor has it I’m looking for love. Thanks a lot.”
My cheeks warmed and I thought about running away. His bare chest was doing something to my body that I couldn’t explain. The definition on his body rivaled anything I’d ever seen, even on male models, and he had a tattoo on his chest of two hockey sticks in the shape of anXwith a puck below them and the number twelve above. Another tattoo of an intricate flame design was just above his hip bone. The infinitysymbol on his bicep, that I could now see saidNever Settlemade three visible tattoos, all drawing my eyes to them. He was even hotter than I’d imagined, and for some reason the ink on his body made me weak in the knees.
Yep, if this doesn’t work, I’m definitely the problem.
“Sorry about that,” I said with a smile. “I thought the article was cute. I put a fun little spin on it so it wasn’t just another hockey biopic. I can see how it might have resulted in this though.”
