She wants it too.
Then she breaks the kiss off, leaning back in my embrace.
“But…”
“But?” I say, and she gives me a look. “Oh. Yeah.”
She disentangles herself and walks to the edge of the balcony. “How are we supposed to tell my dad? It was one thing when I thought I was the only one who felt this way. But if you do too…”
I walk up behind her, enclosing her in my arms. “There’s no if about it. I feel the same. I can’t believe you do.”
“That's all I want.” She turns, raising her hands, curling them around the back of my neck. “But there’s no going back now, is there? We can’t pretend this is a fling, a passing encounter, whatever. We can’t pretend, full freaking stop. And I… I promised dad.”
“What? That you wouldn’t see me?”
She nods.
I sigh darkly. “Oh, Billie…”
“I know,” she snaps. “I shouldn’t have. But I panicked and… This is such a mess.”
“Maybe it is. But I know one thing. There’s no way I can forget about this. There’s no way I can let you go. So we’re going to have to figure this out.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway.”
She leaves my embrace again, walking to the other side of the balcony.
“What doesn’t matter, us?”
“We’re never going to be able to have sex, are we?”
“Yes, yes we fucking are,” I snarl, stalking after her. “Why would you say that?”
She spins on me. “Because you probably have the biggest freaking dick in the whole universe, and I’m not sure I can take it, take you, and even if I could there’s dad, and the promise, and I don’t know what to do—”
I cut her off with a kiss, my hands pressing against her back, crushing her against me. She moans and her hands are on me again, her body shifting.
“You can’t tell me you don’t want this,” I snarl.
“I never said I didn’t want it,” she counters, pouting up at me with the most adorable, sexy expression, a combination only she can achieve. “But I’ve never done it before and I don’t know if—”
“Don’t think about it so much,” I tell her softly. “We’ve got all the time in the world. And anyway, we won’t have to wait. Once I get that perfect body naked, once I’ve made you nice and slick for me, you won’t even be able to believe you were nervous. Our bodies need each other. You can feel it too.”
Her hands smooth over her belly as she nods. “I can. One hundred percent.”
“There you go then.”
“But even if you’re right, we can’t do it before we tell dad, can we?”
I sigh grimly. “You might be right. It’s one thing to go on a date without telling him, but to start the next chapter of our lives… I need to get on good terms with him. He’s going to be our children’s grandfather.”
“So you want to tell him?” she asks.
I nod.
She nods too, but a moment later she shakes her head, her indecision plain in her movements. “I don’t know if I can, not after I promised. I think I should go. This has been a lot. This has been the best night of my life, honestly, but I need space to… I don’t know. To process. To take it all in. Does that even make sense?”
Part of me roars no, she can’t leave me, not now, not after everything we’ve shared.
But another part cautions that if I push too hard, I might ruin what we have, what’s only just beginning.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I tell her. “I’ll let you go—”
She giggles, gifting me with that pout again. “Let me?”
“That’s right.” I smirk. “If, and only if, you agree to see me again tomorrow night. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s painful being apart from you, Billie.”
“What, here?” she asks.
I think for a second. “No. I know somewhere we can go.”
“Where?”
I lean in close to her, kissing her cheek tenderly. Or, at least, as tenderly as I can when everything inside of me is roaring to claim her, claim her hard. She turns and touches my lips with hers, but then pulls away.
“That would ruin the surprise,” I whisper. “So, do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” she murmurs. “We have a deal. And thank you for tonight. It’s honestly been the best night of my life.”
I wrap my arms around her. “There’s so many more to come.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Billie
Penny sits on the counter, something we’re not technically supposed to do. But it’s another day shift and the place is quiet except for a few regulars at the back, all of them consumed with their newspaper or their board games.
“So you left, after all of that?” Penny says.
I pace up and down in front of the counter, filled with the same buzzing energy that has captivated me all night and day.