“About what? You’ve got a weird look on your face.”
“The first time…” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “The first time we were together.”
“Oh.” She swallowed.
“You remember?” he asked, more because he couldn’t think of what else to say. He knew she would remember, knew it was a night she probably thought about just as often as he did.
“Of course I do.” Her words were quiet. Then, louder, she said, “Come on, there’s no time for a trip down memory lane”
“There was something I never understood about that night.”
She bit her bottom lip, but didn’t say anything.
He pressed on. “Why did you…Why didn’t you tell me it was your first time?”
“I didn’t see why it mattered.” Her answer came a little too fast.
“It mattered to me,” Holden said
“Why should it?”
“It just did,” he said, and again he thought of the way she’d looked that night, sliding the silky blue dress over her head and letting him see her pretty white panties and matching bra. Then those had fallen away, too, and she was there, in front of him. Both of them had only been eighteen, knowing nothing at all, yet still dying to take the world by storm.
He’d asked her that night why she’d slept with him. It had nearly killed him. He’d stood there, staring at her, so naked and ready, but he’d had to know. Had to make sure it was right.
“You can’t leave without…” she’d said. “You can’t leave without taking a part of me with you.”
He’d been set for his first deployment just after graduation, which left them only two more months together to sneak around, get drunk in the woods, and make bad choices. Or, as it happened, very, very good ones.
“Holden,” Avery’s voice brought him back to the present, and for an instant, he caught a glimpse of the girl from that night so long ago. Scared, but trying her damnedest not to show it. So, he stalked toward her and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close against him until she could feel his hard need.
“Holden,” she breathed again, but this time it was clear that he’d caught her off guard. And that she liked it.
“Come to bed.” He whispered against her ear. “Come to bed with me.”
“I…” She bit her bottom lip, and it was all he could do not to swoop down and kiss the little red space there. “We should get going. We just—”
“I don’t care what we just did. Do you know how long I’ve been away from you?”
“Of course—”
“Once isn’t enough.” He tugged her shirt over her head, mussing her hair. He had half a mind to leave the boots on, but that would be for another time. He’d already been with kinky Avery. Now he wanted the real Avery. The Avery that had given him a piece of herself to carry with him.
“Get on the bed,” he said.
She eyed him for a moment then sat on the edge of the mattress, her long legs crossed in front of her.
Slowly, he knelt in front of her and pried her thighs apart. Taking an ankle in one hand, he pulled down the zipper of one boot, then tugged it off before doing the same with the other. Next, he pulled away her socks, and he was on the verge of pulling down her leggings with his teeth when she said his name again.
“Holden, don’t you think—?”
He cut her off. “I’m not thinking right now, and neither are you.” He hooked his thumbs over the elastic of her waistband, and she gave him a questioning look before leaning back on her elbows and allowing him to pull the leggings away.
Underneath she wore a pair of coral panties, lacy and see-through, flirty in a way that screamed Avery. Another surge of need rushed to his shaft as he took in the little damp spot between her legs.
“Take your shirt off,” he commanded, needing to see if her bra matched her tiny scrap of lace. Then, just as strongly, needing to pull it away and see the swell of her beautiful breasts.
She did as he asked, and her stiff, dusky nipples greeted him beneath the sheer fabric of her matching bra.