Say Yes (Nostalgic Summer Romance)

There was only the soft light from a single bedside table lamp to illuminate the room, and I took in the blue and green plaid of his comforter through heavy, sated eyes. They roamed the length of the dark paintings and sketches cluttering his walls and desk next, and when he bit down on my neck, I closed my eyes and inhaled the unfamiliar scent of the room where he existed — cologne and paint and a musk that was all his own.

“I hope you know what you’re getting into,” he breathed against the bite like a soothing balm. “Because I don’t have the power to stop this now that we’ve started.”

My only answer was to frame his face in my hands and pull him in for a deeper kiss.

As soon as I did, I realized I was touching his face with my small hand, and I flinched, pulling it away but not breaking the kiss. I tried to deepen it, to roll my hips against Liam’s body and get the friction I needed, but he stopped, panting as he balanced on his elbows above me.

“Why did you pull your hand away?”

I breathed just as hard, eyes searching his. A shrug was all I could come up with as an answer.

Liam frowned, and then in a twisting maneuver and a balancing act, we switched places until he was on his back, and I was on top, straddling him, my thighs on either side of his hips.

I immediately wanted to hide.

I loved the way it felt to be under him, to be dominated by him, to feel him pressing his weight into me and kissing every inch. But the moment he flipped me on top, I felt like I’d been thrown onto a stage in front of an arena of people. Naked. While trying to ice skate, having never done it before in my life.

Liam didn’t seem to notice, though. He just gripped my hips, feeling the curve of them in his palms as he took in the view of me staring down at him. My hands pressed into his chest, my hair falling forward and over the both of us like a curtain.

Slowly, he ran his fingers up my sides, over my shoulders, down my arms until one hand rested over my left, and the other peeled my right hand up so he could see it better. He stretched his pinky against mine, his thumb against mine, like we were making hang ten signs together. For a long while, he just stared at our fingers where they connected, but then he pulled my hand to his lips and — just like he had in the shower — kissed every single finger.

“You’re too good for this world,” he whispered, his eyes flicking up to mine.

My next breath barely squeezed out of me, my chest tight and restricting. I closed my eyes and leaned forward, down, until Liam caught my face with his hands and cradled it to guide our mouths together.

Every kiss and touch until this moment had been born from passion. He’d kissed me hard enough to bruise, bit my skin, slammed me into doors, and shoved me back into his bed. But now, he kissed me with reverence, with tenderness and care. His hands skated back into my hair, his lips moving in tandem with mine.

And between my thighs, I felt him grow hard, the hot length of him pressed against the place I ached for him most.

I gasped, rocking against it and evoking a guttural groan from Liam in response.

“Are you a virgin?” he asked, his thumb skating over my bottom lip as his eyes locked on mine.

I shook my head.

“How many people have you been with?”

“One.”

“Fuck,” he said, closing his eyes and shaking his head. I felt his grip in my hair loosen, felt his hands start to fight me off. “You’re too fucking pure for me, Harley.”

“Shut up and stop thinking so much,” I whispered, and before he could deny me, I leaned down and snatched his next breath, swallowing it whole, wishing on every star that that kiss would convince him and me both that I was fine, that I was ready, that I could do this.

Balancing with my weight on my right hand pressed into his chest, I trailed my left one down between us, gripping his length through his jeans as he bit his lip and let his eyes roll back with a groan.

“Show me how to touch you,” I begged.

With that, another groan ripped from his chest, and just like before, he flipped us until I was on my back once more. “Not yet,” he said simply, and then he helped me sit up just long enough for him to peel my tank top overhead.

We were a tangle of mouths and hands, a tornado of clothes being shed between hard kisses and desperate moans. He still had his jeans on when he got me completely naked, but he didn’t move to join me. Instead, he sat back on his heels and spread my legs, his hands sliding from my knees, down my thighs, until his fingertips ran in the warm creases where my legs met my pelvis.