Page 10 of My Brooding Valentine

Another silence followed. I tried to read her expression, but she just stood there, nervously chewing her lip. One thing she wasn’t doing was staring at me in horror and bolting from the cabin, never to speak to me again. That had to be a good sign.

“Okay,” she said. “Can we go get in your bed and keep the lights out? I want my first time to be in the dark.”

5

HAILEY

My heart was racing again. Sawyer had that effect on me.

I tried to tell myself it was just physical, but after he left, all I could think about was him. The way he looked at me, the way he laughed, the way he took a genuine interest in who I was…

This wasn’t the norm for Sawyer. He clearly kept to himself, and he’d been very slow to open up. But after only a few hours, I felt closer to him than I had any single friend in my life.

Running on instinct, I’d come over here with no idea what I planned to do. I knocked and got no response. Then I knocked again. Finally, I turned the lock and started to call out.

But at the last minute, I stopped myself. Instead, I closed the door behind me and walked across the creaky floorboards, staring at the door to the bedroom.

It was open. I could go in. I could climb into his bed and see what happened from there.

Before I could do any of that, he’d come to the door. He’d stayed in the doorway—hiding his lower half—but now he stood in front of me, naked and fully erect.

The length and thickness of his member was not what I’d expected. He was huge, and I was a virgin. This wouldn’t be easy.

“You’re telling me you’ve never had sex?” he asked.

I shook my head. “As I said, I haven’t dated.”

“Well, you don’t have to date to?—”

I nodded. “I know, but I’m not that type of girl. Well, all evidence to the contrary, I guess.”

I laughed at that—a nervous laugh. Ugh. I didn’t want him to see me as some silly schoolgirl. I was trying to seduce the guy.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” I said. “Just looking at you gets me all…”

I bit my bottom lip, trying to think of the right word. I might be trying to seduce him, but I didn’t want him to see me as unclassy.

“Warm inside?” he asked. “Same. I haven’t been able to think about anything but you since I left your cabin a few hours ago. I went to bed because what the hell else was I going to do? I didn’t want to go over there and knock on your door, but I couldn’t sleep, and I didn’t want to…you know. So here we are. And you’re a virgin.”

I nodded. “I want you to be my first.”

And my last. I didn’t say those three words out loud, but I was thinking them.

“You want me to teach you how to be a good lover?” he asked. There was a hint of amusement in his voice, but then he headed over to the couch and grabbed the throw there, wrapping it around his waist like it was a towel after showering. He turned to face me. “I’d rather slowly get to know you and see where this leads than be a one-night stand.”

I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be a one-night stand. Far from it. I just…well, I want to go after what I want in life. Ineedto go after it, starting with entering the competition, then coming here, and now you.”

“You want me?” he asked.

Wasn’t that clear? God, I sucked at this. No wonder I was twenty-three years old and had never been on a date.

“So why do you want the lights out?” he asked.

Sighing, I looked down at the ground. That was something I wasn’t ready to open up to anyone about, especially not him. I wanted him to see me as beautiful and confident, not insecure about the way I looked naked.

“I’m not toned,” I said. “Not like you. I don’t work out. I love my curves, but I’ve been self-conscious about them all my life.”

There. It was out. I blossomed early and had curves for days. I got attention from boys, but since I spent all my time doing band activities in school, I wasn’t exactly surrounded by guys who had game. Not the confident kind of guy Sawyer was, anyway.

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