Page 69 of Let It Be Me

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Probably not.”

“Uncool, Ruby.” A flicker lights his eyes. “You owe me a secret I don’t have to discover myself.”

“Okay. There are three others.”

His eyebrows shoot up. “Other tattoos? You’re fucking with me.”

“And if you want to see them, youwillhave to discover them yourself.”

His lips part, a look of pure lust taking hold of his expression. To have this effect on him feels like magic in my hands. “Tonight?” he asks, voice husky.

“Depends how many surprises you can handle in one night.”

I put my arms around him and kiss him, craving his warmth on my bare skin again. I lift my chest to direct him back where I want him, and he drops his head, sprinkling a few sparse kisses across my breasts, but then pulls back. I recognize the uncertainty in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I whisper.

He rakes a hand through his hair, hesitating. “I was just thinking.”

“Thinking?”

“Maybe we should slow it down. I need to get this right.”

I smile. “Trust me, Lorenzo, you’re getting it right.” I press my breasts to his chest. “You’re getting it perfect,” I say against his lips.

“No, I mean—” He turns his head, huffs out a little breath. “You’re making this really hard,” he says with a fleeting smile, glancing at my breasts and yanking his eyes away just as quickly. “I mean it should be special between us.”

“This is special,” I assure him. “It’s just you and me; we’re here in our special spot.” I don’t even know what I’m trying to convince him of. I certainly didn’t plan on sleeping with him here and now, but the idea that it’s off the table—that we haveto stop when we were just getting started—is making me a little desperate.

“I know.” Lorenzo strokes his finger along my jaw, and the sweetness of it melts me. “But there’s a lot riding on this, Ruby. I don’t want to ruin us.”

The idea of anything ruining us is new and terrifying. That was never a possibility when we were just friends. “Okay,” I say softly. Because even though my body is already turning cold without his touch, I’ll give him anything he wants right now. Even abstinence.

We’re backon the end of the dock, fully clothed, lantern once again illuminating us as though we haven’t spent the last thirty minutes with my tits in his mouth. I watch the lights from the party boats in the middle of the lake and move my feet slowly back and forth through the cool water.

“Did you ever imagine us ending up like this?” I ask.

“Uh, yeah, like a hundred times.”

“You did not. When?”

“Like when you’d lay out on the dock in your little bikinis. Or when you’d come out of the water and you were ... cold.” His eyes flare meaningfully. “Or when my friends would insist we had to be fucking. You can’t help where your mind goes for a second.”

The idea is delicious, him thinking about me all those years when I had no idea. I wait for him to ask me if I ever imagined it, but he doesn’t. He already knows I did, what with that first kiss of ours. How strange that I’ve spent these years lusting over his lips without knowing I’d already tasted them.

“Why only for a second?” I tease. “That’s not long enough to get to the good stuff.”

“That’s the point.” He doesn’t smile. “Imagining your body in my hands? Too dangerous.”

I get that. Indulging my fantasies about touching Lorenzo made every moment that I wasn’t lost in imagination hurt.

“I already drove myself wild comparing every girl I dated to you. If I started running through fantasies about touching you, no way they wouldn’t have surfaced when I was with someone else. And those girls would always come up short against you, Ruby.”

My insides melt right there. I slide close so our linked hands are pressed tight and warm between his thigh and mine, thinking about the irony of Lorenzo saying we need to take it slow and then spilling those sweet words all over my heart. We can move our lips as slowly as we want, but my heart has already run away without me.

Lorenzo presses a soft kiss to my forehead, bringing a thousand high school fantasies to life.

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