Page 82 of Romance Languages

I stood up and stretched. I wanted so badly to kiss him. My heart vibrated in my chest.

“Thanks for tonight,” Julian said.

“You’re welcome?” It was weird to be thanked for making someone come. The thank you was the orgasm itself.

“For the candle idea. Thank you for pulling me out of my comfort zone.”

“You don’t seem that comfortable in your comfort zone.”

He shrugged. “It’s the only place I know.”

I fingered a lock of his luscious hair.

“Jules, I hope that one day, you see what I see.”

He stood up and pulled me into a tighter-than-expected hug, then gave me a kiss on the cheek. Was that my cue to kiss him back for real or was he merely being nice?

There had been a time when I knew how to be suave. Not tonight, it seemed.

I strolled to the door. “There’s only one thing left. We can’t avoid it now.”

“Sex.” He breathed out a sigh.

“Nervous?” I asked.

“Isn’t everyone nervous before their first time?”

“True.” I was nervous, too, but not for the reasons I should have been.

I massaged his hand with my thumb, clinging to the last bits of physical touch.

The time was now. My heart was begging me to kiss him and gush every feeling I had for him. Was I gay? Was I straight? I’d figure it out in the morning.

The batter couldn’t stand at the plate forever. He had to take a swing.

“Jules. Tonight was incredible. Truly. You are…so wonderful.” My nerves wanted to swallow me whole, making my throat go dry. “I…am having trouble talking tonight.”

“I get it. It’s the sex haze.”

“The what?”

“The sex haze. Our brains get all fogged up in the heat of sex. We get discombobulated and emotional.”

I wondered if a sex haze was the same thing as the sex high Greg had mentioned in Ashley’s greenhouse. Was sex really that much of a brain fogger?

“You feel out of sorts?” he asked.

“Yeah. A little.” I’d eaten a guy’s ass and loved it. Out of sorts didn’t begin to cover it.

“The same thing will happen when we go all the way. We have to remember that sex is a physical act, that’s all. It’s not emotional. We’re just two friends who are going to have sex, and that’s that. Two guys fucking around. Nothing to be nervous or awkward about.”

He held up his hand for a high-five, which for some reason felt like a punch in the gut.

Still, I was never one to turn down a hi-five.

I couldn’t explain why, but I left Julian’s place soulcrushed. The high was replaced with a pang of hurt lighting up my chest. I stood on the stoop, taking in the chilly air, the rustling of naked branches on the maple trees lining his street.

We’re just two friends who are going to have sex, and that’s that.

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