Dare Me

She snorted and sighed. “Well. At least I got the décor right. I was trying to look all special and perfect before you get here.”

“You always look that way.” Lake tipped her head down and wiggled her pursed lips to the side – her expression every time I said something she liked and she was too flattered to say something smart in return. I liked the way it made her dimples look. “Care to tell me why you needed this night to be in your dorm room and not my much nicer apartment?”

She put the nail polish down and laughed. “Because.”

“Yeah?”

“Because… it just feels right. Like what normal girls do. And I want to be a normal girl.”

I looked at her, so fucking angelic in front of those Christmas lights. “You could never be a normal girl if you tried.” She wiggled her lips again but now something had shifted in her. She was nervous. She went quiet so I stepped close to take her by the waist. “Lake. You know I’m always going to be here waiting for you if you can’t do it tonight.”

“I don’t want to wait any longer.” She paused. “And I can’t know anymore that you’re sleeping with other girls.”

“Then I won’t.”

“What if I wait till I’m fifty?”

“I’ll wait with you.”

I meant it but she laughed and closed her eyes. They opened to gaze at the floor. “I love you, Callum.”

I grinned. I actually said it more often than she did. It felt like a gift when I heard it from her. “I love you, too.”

She lifted her eyes at me. They were wet and that glossy hazel was as good as two bullets to the knees. “I want it tonight,” she murmured. “I just want you to tell me that I’m a normal girl. Like Isabel and all my friends here. Even Dara.”

“Why would you want to be?”

She closed her eyes again as I kissed her forehead. “Just tell me I am.”

“You’re a normal girl,” I said. I’d never said anything that felt more like a lie to her but I didn’t mind doing it tonight if it eased whatever was going on in her head. I slid my hands from her cheeks into her hair and kissed her. “You just also happen to be the most beautiful one in the world.” She didn’t say anything in reply but her lips curved against mine.

The sex we had that night in her bed was slow, at first painful for her. I kept my eyes on her the entire time, reading her body, moving to her wordless instruction till she was moaning softly. My arms caged her shoulders, my biceps and forearms flexed completely tight as my palms dug into her mattress so I could control the pace, the strength of every push and pull. My muscles burned and strained with my need to just bury myself all the way inside her because she looked so beautiful and felt so unreal, but I wouldn’t let myself. Of course I wouldn’t. I took it slower than I thought I knew how and because it was Lake, I loved every torturous second of it.

I kissed every inch of her skin till she was no longer tight or tense. She felt too fucking good to be true and the first time, I came before getting to see how her perfect face would twist when I gave her an orgasm. But an hour later, I took in every second of it – that open mouth and the gorgeous, sexy pinch between her eyebrows. Her jaw trembled in my hand as I drove into her, filling her completely like she couldn’t bear the first time. I’d been ready to explode on ten different occasions but I forced myself to hold on and to keep my eyes open because she was too beautiful to miss even a second of.

I shuddered in her the second she was finished.

At midnight, we sat together on the fire escape and she dangled her legs

from where I came to talk her down from her panics, whether it was a bad critique in class or some other issue. I wrapped a blanket around us as she sat back against me, painting my initials onto the wrought iron.

“It just looks like the word ‘cap,’” I teased her.

“To everyone else, but we’ll know what it is.”

I nodded. “How long do you think it’ll stay there? Next time it rains?”

“Not unless it’s raining nail polish remover.” She leaned over to admire her work. “This is strong stuff.”

“Yeah.” I raised my eyebrows. “Glad you willingly put it on your body.”

She snorted. “I don’t think it’s toxic.”

“Doesn’t matter. Even if it was, so are you.”

She dropped her jaw. “Callum! What kind of thing is that to say?”

I caught her hand as it tried to smack me. “I meant it in a good way. You’re the best poison I could possibly ingest.”