Page 75 of The Sweet Spot

I cry out as I come, trembling and inarticulate. It seems to go on and on, finally fading as he pulls his fingers out of my shorts and sucks them into his mouth.

I watch, panting, as his eyes gleam. He wants me. I can see it; I can feel it, and as ready as my body is ready for his, my heart is still uncertain. We’re so new. Maybe he senses it, because he rises, coming up to kiss me. “You okay?”

“More than okay.” My face warms, and I hold him tightly.

Huffing softly, he kisses my neck and pulls back. “I’m not trying to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I do want to. I just…”

“It’s okay.” Lying down beside me, he takes me into his arms. “I respect that.”

“But aren’t you painfully hard right now?”

“Mhm.” Grinning, he puts my hand on his dick. “But I’d rather take it slow.I think you want to, right?”

I nod, my chest near bursting with a deep sense of intense like for Luca. My throat closes and I swallow back the salt of tears, not wanting to ruin this with a weird, emotional breakdown.That was some orgasm.

“You sure you’re okay?” he murmurs, thumbing my chin.

I gaze into his pretty eyes, ensnared. “Perfect.”

* * *

Saira perches on the futon, popping pretzels into her mouth as she squints suspiciously at me. Our three-bunk bedroom with Leighton came with a lounge this year, so we have a little more space than before.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” I ask, chuckling as I sort laundry into ‘wash’ and ‘wait.’

She raises a sculpted, freshly-tweezed-looking eyebrow. “You know damn well why,bestie.”

“My eyebrows, right? Yeah, it’s been a while. You can tweeze me between laundry loads.”

A pretzel comes sailing my way. “You didn’t come home last night!”

“I texted you!”

“I know you did.” She flips her long, black hair over her shoulder. “But tellme you didn’t spend all night underneath that boy letting him give you some good, good d—”

“I didn’t!” I laugh, sending her pretzel back.

“Why not? You’ve wanted him foreverrr.”

“Because we just started seeing each other for real.” I shrug, squashing the urge to sniff last night’s hoodie. It smells like Luca. “I don’t want to rush and ruin it.”

“Yeah, I get that. Sometimes they take off once they get a taste,” she says sagely, nodding. “The ol’ fuck n’ flee.”

I cackle out loud at that one.

“Also known as the hump n’ dump,” she adds with a saucy grin.

“Well. I don’t think Luca’s like that,” I say, still laughing. But I don’t know this for sure—I wouldn’t be the first girl who’s had her pants charmed off. “But I really, really like him and I need to take my time.”

“I get it.” Saira smiles gently, nodding. “Remember Ben?”

“Of course, I do. He was a sweetheart.” Ben was Saira’s first serious boyfriend. They were together for all of junior year of high school, when his family moved to Portland. She’s over him now, obviously, but she still holds him up as kind of a standard for what to do right with relationships.

She nibbles the salt off another pretzel. “I know good things take time.”

“Exactly.” I toss a dirty sock into the wash pile and pause, leaning against the wall. “I want it to mean something when we do it.”

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