Embarrassment burns under my skin and spreads over my cheeks in a flush, confessing my self-consciousness. Another way this body has betrayed me. The freshman fifteen. Sophomore seven. Junior jelly belly. Senior cellulite. With each year at Kerrington, I accomplished my goals and my confidence grew, but so did my waistline. My confidence has never been dictated by the number on the tag in my jeans. I know what I am and I know what I’m not, and I’ve made my peace with that. But these things Jared’s saying . . . they confuse me. They mix things up again and reignite the futile hopes of that chubby girl sitting beside the most beautiful guy at freshman orientation. The guy who probably remembered the pencil I gave him more than he remembered me.
So, yeah. This is strange, and I don’t trust it. When Jared and I started studying together this semester, I put my crush in time out. I disciplined it. I locked it in its room with no dinner.
I starved it.
Now he’s feeding it with impossible words and heated looks and urgent touches. He brings my hand to his chest. His heart beneath my palm thuds fast and heavy.
“Feel,” he says, twisting our fingers together over the tight muscles and ungiving bone. “My heart’s racing, too.”
His heart is racing.
And his breath is short, panting.
His eyelids half-mast over the desire smoking his eyes.
His body is giving me clues, but I’m still having trouble putting it all together.
“This could be our last night together, Banner,” he says softly.
Since elementary school I’ve been focused. Perfect attendance from kindergarten until high school graduation. Charity work, skipped grades, extracurricular activities, and always the highest GPA. I’ve dated very little and ended any relationship as soon as it started distracting me.
The guy I’ve crushed on since freshman year wants me. I have no idea why or how, but he does. His racing heart beneath my hand attests to it. What if tonight, for one damn night, I do what I want to do instead of what is required? I don’t know how all the pieces fit together, but I do know I’ve denied myself many things over the years pursuing my goals. I want this. I want him, and for once, I’m going to indulge.
“Okay,” I say, my answer clearer than my thoughts.
Surprise and relief skitter across his expression, and he isn’t the guy always outfitted in assurance, surrounded by campus elites well beyond my social reach. It’s just us, Jared and Banner. When I say yes, he looks at me like this is too good, like I’m too good to be true, too. He recovers quickly, resuming control, sliding his hands down my back.
“Then you owe me a kiss.” Jared’s words slide over me, and every cell in my body seems to lift in his direction, straining for another syllable from those lips.
“I do?” I force myself to meet his hooded stare. “I kissed you.”
“No, I kissed you. Your turn.”
I’m not short, but at six-three, Jared’s still taller. If he doesn’t bend, I have to tip up on my toes to reach him.
He doesn’t bend.
Drawing in a steadying breath that does no good because I remain unsteady, I lift on the balls of my feet and take his bottom lip between both of mine. I’m not as confident as he was. I suck softly, tentatively, and his chest lifts, breath drawn sharply through his nostrils. He squeezes me tighter but otherwise gives no indication that I’m affecting him.
But I am.
Suddenly, his body is giving him away, telling me how much he wants this. How much he wants me, and every part of him—his dick like stone pressing into me, his hands clenching, the measured breaths—every part of him tells me he wants this badly.
I loop my arms around his neck and press my breasts into him, slipping my fingers into the smooth fair pelt of hair. I hold his head exactly where I want it and dive into his mouth, sucking his tongue the way he did mine, licking at the interior. I said we aren’t animals, but I’m like a savage with my first taste of blood. I’m straining up, biting, grunting at the tangy taste of him. At the perfect firm and soft of his mouth. The kiss turns wet and hot and feral.
“Shit,” he mutters, dragging his open mouth over my jaw. “Yeah. Give me all of that.”
He walks us backward in slow steps while his hands cup my breasts.
“Great tits, Ban,” he breathes into me. Even through my sweatshirt, my nipples bud under the fingers rubbing and twisting and tweaking.
We’ve reached the back room, and he pauses at the entrance, pressing me into the doorjamb. The wood digs into my back, the discomfort counterpoint to all the pleasure at my front. Jared rests against me, the hardened length of him nudging between my legs. He unfastens the button and zip of my jeans, slips his hand past my panties to spread my lips and rub my clit. It’s sudden and electric and aggressive—the most shocking pleasure I’ve ever experienced. I full-body quiver, and my head bangs against the wood behind me as I grind helplessly into his hand.
“I want in here,” he says, breath heaving. “But I want you to come first. Have you ever come standing up?”
I comb through the sensual fog of my memories for the times I’ve come. The few boyfriends I’ve had weren’t skilled lovers, or at least they didn’t waste their skills on me. Eyes closed, I shake my head.
“Well, you’re about to.” One thick finger penetrates me.