Page 17 of The Bully's Dare

“I’m…not!” she huffs, but she pulls a bit of hair behind her ear when she says it. She does add, “I guess there are worse ways to lose my virginity.”

“No. There aren’t. That’s the absolute worst way. You don’t want to be a notch on someone’s flip-flops.”

She shrugs. “Honestly, I’d rather be a notch. I can’t think of anything worse than a rose-petal bed.”

“Chilled champagne.”

“Chocolate-covered strawberries on the pillow.”

“Your lover playing an acoustic guitar softly from the bathtub.”

We both look at each other and cackle.

“You’re right. That does sound terrible.”

Kenzi drops hear head against the couch. Her raven hair drips over the back like a waterfall. “What was your first time like?”

“What, you mean besides the rose petals?”

She sticks out her tongue.

I steal the beer, take a swig, and then set it in my lap, loosely cradling the neck between both hands. “Miles Kronfeld,” I tell her. “Seventh grade. His parents made him keep the bedroom door open at all times—boys or girls, didn’t matter—which, in retrospect, was pretty forward of them, I guess. We’d have sleepovers and one night he climbed into my bunk. We touched each other and I’d just…watch the changes in his face. Listen to the hitch of his breath.”

“So it was like…only handjobs? You two never…?” Kenzi extends her two pointer fingers and taps the tips together.

I frown. “What…because it wasn’t penetrative, it doesn’t count? It was intimate. Probably more intimate than most of the penetrative sex I’ve had. So, yeah. I count it.”

“That’s fair,” Kenzi agrees. Her eyes drift to VH1, but I can tell she’s not really watching. “Why does sex have to be so complicated?”

I shrug. “It doesn’t.”

“It’s my body,” Kenzi protests.

“It is.”

“And I can do whatever I want with it.”

I look her straight in those emerald eyes. “So what do you want to do with it?”

I’m not immune to the shift in the air between us. For a minute, it hangs. It’s the feeling of putting on clothes straight out of the dryer—static electricity that makes your hair stand on end.

And then Kenzi leans in, and I lean in. We crash somewhere in the middle, mouth finding mouth, hands groping, feeling for…something. Like finding each other in the dark. We are sloppy. We are rushed. She tastes like cheap beer and fruity lip balm. I want to suck it off her lips.

The beer spills. No one cares. Our teeth click in our haste and we chuckle about it, her warm breath a puff on my cheek. My lips find her neck. That sensitive spot underneath her ear. She moans and the sound plucks a cord inside of me that sends me trembling.

My mouth fingers hers again, and this time, we taste each other. She licks the inside of my mouth, kitten-like. When we break apart, she sucks my bottom lip in her mouth and nibbles the steel of my lip ring.

There is something simultaneously so eager to please and so innocent about her and it goes straight to my groin. I could cut through diamonds right now.

I fall in top of her, pinning her to the couch. She grips my hair. The back of my chest. She tugs at my shirt and her legs wrap tightly around my waist, boa-constrictor style. Our hips wedge together and we roll around, soaking in each other’s heat. She lifts her arms and I acquiesce and push her shirt and her bikini top over her head—they’re both still damp and they roll up together in a tangled mess before hitting the floor.

Her breasts spill out—beautiful, soft, and full—and she pulls my shirt off and our skin feels so hot together, so good pressed together. I feel every brush of her fingertips. The warmth of every soft sigh. The movement of her body, undulating and jerking restlessly and wantingly underneath me.

It’s almost too much. “Slow down,” I try to coax her.

But she’s animal-frantic, grabbing at me. “I want you inside of me,” she pleads, her voice this low, heated thing.

“Yeah…” Mine, a gravelly growl that I barely recognize.

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