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His eyes soften at the edges, and it makes me feel like I’m going to melt into a happy little puddle right here. Gosh, I’m in so deep. I think I’m starting to fall in love with him. I’m not positive, because I don’t have any other examples to compare it to, but I can’t explain this constant happiness that seems to hum along my nerve endings when he’s close by. It’s more than the butterflies in my stomach now. My whole body has joined the party.
“Yeah. Of course I did.”
I nibble on my lip. “I would need a list. What to pack. What to call your parents. How close the guest room is to yours. I don’t do well if I walk into some place without having a plan.”
He smiles and leans over, tilting my chin between his thumb and forefinger and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“My mom is Laura unless she tells you otherwise, which she will in the first five minutes. My dad is Mike. You’ll want to pack for warmth, there are a lot of outside activities. Gloves, hat, jacket, hoodies, the whole nine yards. You can bring your noise canceling headphones. Nobody will be offended. And the room is right next to mine, connected by a Jack and Jill bathroom. My older brother used to stay in it, but he’s out of the house now.”
I nod. My heart doing somersaults in my chest. “Okay.”
He goes still. “Okay like you’ll think more, or okay like—”
“Okay like yes.” I push my glasses up. “I’m saying yes. I’ve never seen an ice carving contest before. Or ice skated.”
“You’ve never been on the ice before!” He climbs into my lap, cupping my face in his. “Oh, yeah, we are changing that.”
My breath catches, and I’m pretty sure all the blood in my brain just raced south. His eyes darken, and I know he’s going to kiss me. My eyes drop to his mouth, and I wet my lips in preparation.
His mouth is warm as it meets mine. A languid caress, before his tongue runs along the seam of my lips until I part for him. He groans and his fingers go into my hair, drawing out a sound from me, as our tongues dance and tangle together in a now familiar movement.
He grinds his hips into mine, and it’s exquisite torture. But there’s something else…our rules…rule three to be specific.
“Wait,” I say, and he pulls back immediately. I inhale deeply trying to catch my breath. “What about friends with benefits there?”
“My parents won’t care.”
“That’s not what I’m asking,” I say, pressing my hands on his chest when he goes to kiss me again. I can’t think clearly when he’s kissing me. “Rule three. We won’t be in the dorm.”
He rolls his lip between his teeth, before releasing it. “We can adjust it. To just needing to be alone. It’s sort of the same.”
“That’s a material change. We should write—”
He kisses the corner of my mouth. Not enough to count as interrupting, but close enough to my actual lips that my sentence falls apart.
“Write it after,” he murmurs against my lips. “We can say, alone. My room with the door shut, a car as long as it’s just the two of us, anywhere that we don’t have an audience. I know you wrote it because you want to be able to touch me the same way I want to touch you. We still can.”
“That’s sloppy language.”
“This is me negotiating while I’m hard in your lap, brain. Cut me some slack.” He rolls his hips once, watching my face. Smiling when I shift up into him. “Say yes to the new amendment and I’ll stop. Or if you don’t want me to stop, say yes and I won’t. Your choice.”
My fingers curl over his shoulders, and I pull him closer. “Alone,” I manage. “We can write it down later.”
“Tonight,” he agrees. He nips my lower lip. “See? We can make changes.”
“You’re distracting me.”
“I’m incentivizing it.” Another sinful grind of his hips. “And being a really good friend with benefits. Tell me to get off of you and I will.”
I pull his mouth back to mine instead, and he laughs into the kiss like he won this argument, if you can call it that.
He kisses me until thinking feels optional. I can feel him through his sweats, hard against where I’m hard, and my hips keep answering without my full consent. His hands slide under my shirt, palm flat on my stomach, then lower, thumb catching on the waistband of my own sweats.
He pulls back enough to see my face, his eyes darting between mine. We haven’t gone this far since before our agreement. His mouth is wet. And his pupils are blown wide with desire.
“Can I try something?” he asks. “You can say no. I mean it.”
My pulse throbs in my throat. “What something?”
