Boys Like You

And when his mouth rested near my ear, my hands slowly crept up until I clung to his shoulders like a child afraid to fall.

“I was waiting for this,” he said.

My eyes squeezed shut, and I loved the feel of his hard body against me. He was real. Solid. Alive.

I might have groaned or made some other equally embarrassing noise, when I inhaled sharply, hot fires burning everywhere inside me as his hand moved to my butt and he held me even tighter against him. It had been so long since I’d let anyone touch me, let alone hold me like this. Like we were already a part of each other.

“Are you done waiting?”

“Yeah,” he said throatily. “I am.

Chapter Fourteen

Nathan

I had never wanted to kiss a girl as badly as I wanted to kiss Monroe Blackwell. Never.

Not even that first time, when I’d pressed myself against Rachel and she’d opened her shirt so that I could see her boobs. I knew I was gonna get a hell of a lot more than a kiss from Rachel, but even then, I didn’t feel like I did right now.

Like I was coming apart. Like if I didn’t hold Monroe as close to me as I could, I would explode.

/> I was hot and tight and hard. And I knew that if she moved an inch or so lower, she would know just how hard I was. It wasn’t like I could hide it.

She made this noise, this almost painful-sounding noise, and my hands clutched at her, holding her in place, because suddenly I was afraid I was gonna lose it big-time. I’d gone from zero to freaking one hundred in less than a minute, and I didn’t know if I could control the shit that was going on inside me.

I was so afraid of scaring her off that I nearly let her go. I nearly let her float away from me, because as much as she was into this right now, I knew that I needed to take things slow with her. I thought of her eyes. Of the secrets they held. I thought of the pain I’d glimpsed, and something inside me twisted.

What was I doing? I was no good for her. Hell, with the crap going on in my life, I wasn’t good for anybody.

“Are you done waiting?” she said.

I blinked, my body tightening even more if that was possible.

No.

Then she moved a bit—we were skin on skin. She made that sound again, and I was done.

“Yes,” I said, barely able to answer. “I am.”

I’d kiss her. And maybe it would suck. Maybe all this other stuff didn’t mean shit when it came to actual kissing.

Her pupils were huge, her long hair slicked against her shoulders, and her mouth was shiny and open. She shuddered against me as I bent forward and gathered her even closer.

I felt her legs tighten around my waist, and I think I stopped breathing until my mouth slid over hers and she exhaled into me.

At first, she was hesitant, her lips trembling a little beneath mine, but then her fingers dug into my shoulders and she opened up, her tongue sliding into my mouth and driving me crazy. She was warm and soft and smooth beneath my fingers, and her mouth was as amazing as I had imagined.

No, that was wrong, because everything was way better than I’d imagined. The way she felt. The way she tasted. Those little noises she kept making.

We kissed for a long time. Long enough for me to know that if I didn’t stop things, I was gonna embarrass myself in ways a guy should never do with a girl he liked.

Carefully, I pulled away, though her legs were still wrapped around my waist as if they belonged there.

We were both breathing pretty heavy, and for a few long seconds, I stared down into the most amazing eyes I’d ever seen, and the cool thing was, there were no shadows. No pain. No sadness.

There was just Monroe.

“Hey,” I managed to say.