Page 132 of The Lair

There it is.

“Yeah.” My face is officially flaming hot. “I’ve never done it.”

“All right,” he says calmly. “That’s something you’re worried about?”

“I’m just nervous. I mean, I kind of thought for a second there that you’d find it lame, but that was just me self-sabotaging.”

My therapist says I tend to do that a lot, so it doesn’t surprise me that the tendency makes an appearance during an intimate moment.

“Allie, you’re the furthest thing from lame.” His voice turns serious. “Your life wasn’t exactly normal. But even if it had been, being a virgin isn’t something to be ashamed of. You hear me?”

My throat is dry. “I hear you.”

He rests his forehead against mine, one of his hands traveling the length of my spine until it settles around my neck in a loose grip. “We don’t have to do anything, today or ever.”

I find myself shaking my head, breathless. “I need you, Travis. I want to do this now.”

His nose grazes mine, his grip on my neck tightening in a way that doesn’t feel restrictive but deliciously possessive. And when he presses his front against mine and I feel his rock-hard bulge against my stomach, my head becomes void of all thoughts but the blind need to have him.

His voice is raspy when he says, “You’re killing me, sweetheart.”

“I’m not doing anything,” I whisper.

“You standing there, looking at me, fuckingbreathing, is enough to drive me insane.”

My head spins. Travis is so huge, so imposing, so capable of being tender and rough, a part of me wonders if I should feelat least a little intimidated right now. And I do feel somewhat nervous, but Travis… There’s simply not a world where I feel incapable, uncomfortable, or insecure if he’s with me.

My mouth finds his again, and I let go of the what-ifs, of the nerves swirling in my stomach, and focus on how good his hands on my body feel as he effortlessly hoists me up.

Before I know it, we’re moving. I don’t stop kissing him to see where we’re going because there’s no place I wouldn’t want to be if he’s there.

My fingers tangle in his short hair, and I hear him opening a door. My mouth descends on his neck, earning me a shiver, and I hear him shutting the door behind us. When I open my eyes, moonlight filters through the curtains of the one bedroom in this house I’d never been in until tonight—his.

Travis sits on the edge of his mattress with me straddling him as I shamelessly look around. A king-sized bed, one nightstand, the same wooden wardrobe I have in my bedroom, and an ajar door, which I’m assuming is the bathroom.

“Like what you see?” His voice is teasing, but his gestures are tender as he places a loose strand of hair behind my ear.

“You’re not a fan of pictures on the walls, are you?” I tease him back, eyeing the empty space.

“I didn’t have anything worth putting up on my bedroom walls before,” he says, his voice low. His hand moves from my ear to cradle the nape of my neck. “Now I do.”

“You’re going to plaster my face all over your walls?”

“Sure, but I’d rather have the real you sleeping in my bed every night.”

“Deal. I’d need my own nightstand, though. I need a place to keep my bedside water bottle and e-reader.”

“I’ll build you one with my bare hands if you want me to.”

I chuckle, hugging him around his neck. He hugs me back, pulling me closer. “No need to build it with your own hands, although that would be sexy.”

“Sexy, huh?”

“It’s just…” I take advantage of the fact that my face is buried in his neck, and he can’t see how furiously I’m blushing. “Your hands.”

“My hands,” he repeats. I canhearhis smirk.

“Yeah.”

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