Page 112 of From Now On

His voice is low and husky, yet still manages to sound authoritative.

I yank my shirt the rest of the way off. As soon as it’s gone, Hunter cups my breasts in his broad hands.

I lean into his touch. The swells that have often seemed too large settle perfectly in his palms. His thumbs play with the points of my nipples, managing to make the throb feel better and worse.

“They look even better like this than they did in that Beatles shirt,” he says.

I smile, glance at my shirt, and then frown. There’s no logo on it.

“Not tonight. Freshman year.”

I stare at him sprawled on my mattress, stunned. “You’ve been thinking about my boobs for four years?”

“Notjustyour tits. But yeah.”

I reach into his pocket, propelled by a fresh sense of this urgency. Thisneedis new to me. It’s a desperation that’s deeper than physical desire.

The heat of his skin sears through the pocket’s thin fabric. Hunter’s thigh is hard and firm, thick muscles tensing beneath my touch as my fingers close around a foil packet.

I’ve never put a condom on a guy before, even though I’ve never had sex without one. That’s what happens when you’re raised by a single mother who got pregnant at sixteen, I guess. When it comes to sex, I’ve never felt like there was such a thing astoo careful. I’ve thoughtWas that worth getting pregnant over?after sex. Tracked my cycle so I knew exactly which days I was ovulating. I have plenty of unhealthy hang-ups about physical intimacy—maybe emotional intimacy too—that I try to ignore most of the time.

But I’ve never been less aware of them than I am right now. Rolling the condom over Hunter’s dick has nothing to do with safe sex. I want to touch him this intimately. To memorize the shape of what’s about to be inside of me.

I scoot backward so I’m sitting on his thighs. My grip on the foil packet is getting sweaty, so I drop the condom on my comforter and use both hands to work the elastic waistbands of his boxers and sweats down his hips.

Some of my courage withers when I get my first glimpse of his bare erection.

I saw his size before, during Dickgate. But that was a quick peek in a motel bathroom’s shitty lighting. And he wasn’t hard.

I reach out slowly, trailing my fingers along the soft skin pulled so taut it looks shiny. The tipisshiny, flushed an angry purplish red.

This isfor me.Because of me.

Hunter grunts when I fist the flared head, pre-cum smearing my palm.

“I know this sounds like a porn line,” I start, and his eyebrows lift with interest. “But are yousureit’s going to fit? Because I’m…not.”

His chest rumbles with a low laugh. “Yeah. It’s going to fit.”

“You don’t sound worried.”

He smirks. “I’m not.”

“Well,Iam. I have areallylow pain tolerance.” My first time hurt like hell, and Dean Ackerman’s dick was half the size of Hunter’s.

But I pick up the condom and tear the wrapper open, because that isn’t enough of a deterrent. Because I trust Hunter.

He groans when I roll the condom down the thick length of his erection. I can feel the raised vein pulsing through the thin layer of latex.

“I’m going to try to make this last,” he tells me as he sits up. “But it’s been a while.”

Talking takes me a minute, because he’s just yanked his hoodie off. His blond hair is boyishly mussed, but his body is all man.

I know hockey is a physical sport. Know athletes work hard to keep their bodies in peak condition. But I’ve never been on a bed with someone in this sort of shape, and it… Honestly, it’s a massive turn-on. There’s some primal part of me that loves howmasculineHunter looks. How soft his hardness makes me feel. How safe his strength makes me feel.

“How long?” I ask, a little breathlessly, as I shift onto the mattress so Hunter can pull his sweats the rest of the way down.

“November.”

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