“I want,” I groaned. “I just need…a map. Guidelines. Something.”
“Good.” He kissed me again, a quick, hard one. “Think you could let me navigate for a while?”
“You are the one who’s been here before.” My tone was probably less than charitable because I hated my own inexperience so much. I just wanted to know what all those other guys knew, wanted to know exactly how to make him happy in a multitude of different ways.
“Hey now. I thought we were done calling me indiscriminate?”
“That was me being grateful,” I protested. “Really. I’m glad one of us knows what they’re doing.”
“Oh, Alden. None of us know. Not really.” He rubbed my head like a freaking puppy as he climbed down from the hood of the car. I wouldn’t say I pouted, but I also wasn’t particularly talkative on the drive to the motel, which turned out to be as advertised, several rows of tiny log cabins, all surrounding an outdoor pool and main building with a check-in desk and other amenities like a small convenience store.
Ours was one of the smallest, a single room with a quilt-covered bed, slim counter with a coffee maker, and narrow bathroom in the rear of the space. The one bed, not particularly huge, might as well have been a tarantula for how welcoming it seemed and how wide a berth I gave it as we set our things down.
“You okay? We survived last night, remember?” Conrad’s forehead creased.
“Last night was different,” I whispered, swallowing hard.
“I know.” He took my hand, pulling me closer to him, near the window through which the sky continued to twinkle. “Do you want to pretend that we didn’t—”
“I suck at pretending. And no, I liked today. It was the best day ever,” I admitted.
“Me too.” His eyes were as soft and generous as I now knew his lips to be. And warm with concern, which I knew was my fault for freaking out. I didn’t want to freak out. Didn’t want to ruin his nice gesture of finding this place. And I wasn’t scared. It was more wanting to be good—no, great—for him. Perfect. I hated not knowing what to do or say to make that happen.
But if I’d learned nothing else over the course of the day, it was that Conrad was exceedingly easy to distract. It didn’t take more than me leaning in for his eyes to shift from worried to something else, something hot that made my pulse thrum.
He flipped the light closest to us off, and by the light of the moon and stars, we kissed standing up for what felt like an eternity. And honestly, stars could have gone supernova and I’m not sure I would have noticed, drunk as I was on his taste.
Time ceased having meaning for everything except my increasingly weak limbs, each kiss melting more of my knee joints until finally I was the one to pull away, gasping, “Horizontal kissing?”
“Not going to make you too nervous?” His voice was kind even as he was already heading toward the bed. “We could simply lay here together too.” Stretching out on the bed, he patted the spot next to him. “We don’t have to kiss.”
“I kinda think we do.” Voice serious, I lay next to him, not touching, but close enough to feel the heat rolling off his body. It felt like the very atoms that made up my body were one zooming particle away from disaster. Or unmitigated triumph, a human particle accelerator. The jury was still out on which was more likely. “I need to make sure my…passing grade isn’t a fluke.”
He smiled, wide and pleased. “It’s not. And damn, I love when you joke.”
“I am capable of humor.” I frowned at him, equal parts frustrated and turned on.
“I know. And I like that. I like when I’m not the only wacky one.” He tugged me closer, our legs tangling.
“You’re not. But it wasn’t a joke. I take my science very seriously.” Hovering my face over his, I studied his eyes, which reflected both the dim bedside light and the magic of the earlier moonlight kissing. “And you said I was good—”
“Alden?”
“Yeah?”
“Shut up and kiss me now.”
I did, following what I’d learned so far about what he liked—him being the one in control, me responding to his lead. But he also liked when I tried things, as evidenced by the way his chest rumbled and he held me tighter when I sucked on his tongue. We were close enough that I could tell he was as excited as me, but he seemed quite happy to take our time, not pressing for more than kissing, and letting me explore.
If anything, I was the one who wanted to plunge ahead. Driven by an instinct I still wasn’t sure whether to trust, my hands roamed over his back, snaking under the smooth cotton of his T-shirt. He moaned his approval as I cataloged each of his lean back muscles. Rolling to my back, I pulled him more fully on top of me.