Page 113 of Worth Every Moment
She pulls her foot out of my grip and it slips back beneath the water. Gone is the dreamy look in her eye. “Bullshit. I’m calling you on yours. You remember everyone’s name and all the details about their lives. I’ve seen you do it at parties. Recalling the smallest details about people you’ve met once, years before. You pay attention. So why don’t you remember those women’s names if you take them to bed?”
I bite down on the pad of my thumb, but the pinch isn’t enough of a punishment for all the wrongs I’ve done. “You want to make it make sense, huh?”
“I don’t wantitto make sense. I wantyouto make senseto me. I want to understand why you’re the way you are.”
“Why I sleep around?”
Her lips tighten, her cheeks reddening. It could be the heat of the bathwater, I can’t be sure. “I told you I was a virgin. I told you why, more or less.”
I arch my back, tipping my head so I don’t have to look at her. No one has ever asked me this question. Not even my brothers. No one has ever given a fuck, and I can’t help feeling a little ashamed that it’s taken this long for anyone to care. I wish I could be grateful that Erica is the one to finally take an interest, but I can’t handle the intimacy of it, so I change the tangent of the conversation. “Why is it so terrible to have casual sex?”
She squirms in the water. “I don’t think it’s terrible. But I wouldn’t do it the way you do it. I’d rather be in a committed relationship.”
“So it’s not the sex bit you take issue with. It’s the casual bit?”
“Yes. I’d want to know I was sharing my body with someone who cared about me.”
My heart thumps a little harder. “I care about you.”
“I know. I care about you too. That’s why I’m here, like this, with you.” She gently splashes a hand in the water as if to encompass everything we are and everything we’ve done. “So, will you tell me why you forget their names and won’t look them in the eye, when, otherwise, you’re one of the most thoughtful, attentive people I’ve ever met? You don’t miss a thing.” I’m about to thank her for the compliment when she adds, “Except when you’re cracking shitty jokes to avoid an intense emotion, so don’t do that now, please.”
38
ERICA
Seb stares, so handsome, so contemplative.Have I gone too far?Is he going to push me away? That moment when I thought he wouldn’t look at me during sex was harrowing. I want to understand it.
“Turn around.” He taps his chest and adds, “Come here.”
It’s not the order that has me obeying, but the vulnerability in his eyes. The attempt at connection. I shift so my back is to him, and he pulls me against his chest, where I rest, skin-to-skin, feeling his lungs expand and deflate with every breath. He trails one hand down my arm, over my breast, teasing my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. The touch is almost absent-minded, but I’m so grateful for it. I’ve been holding tension at the thought that he wouldn’t want me anymore.
I melt into him and his fingers glide over my wet skin. He’s not doing it to make a move, but more as though he owns my body and can touch it as he likes.I love him touching me like this.Heat trickles through me.
Behind me, his dick thickens, the length of him pressing into me. “Are you hard again? I’m trying to have a serious conversation—”
He makes a low rumbling sound in his throat that tells me he’s smiling. “You’re the woman of my dreams, and your naked arse is nestled between my legs. I’m listening to you, I swear, but my dick is having the time of his life, so you should probably just ignore him because, if you’re around, he’s gonna be hard for the foreseeable future.”
Ignoring his attempt at humour, I change tack. “Will you tell me how you lost your virginity?”
Tension runs through him like electricity through a cable; it jolts against my skin.
“It’s not a good story,” he says.
I peel myself off his chest, twisting in the water to face him, eddies spiraling around me. I take his face in both hands, staring into his beautiful blue eyes. “Please, Seb.”
He closes them, sucking in air and letting it out in a groan. “You’re killing me with all the questions, Lefroy.”
I lie back against him, letting his fingers caress me again. We lie silently for what feels like an age before he says, “I lost my virginity to a prostitute when I was sixteen.”
I don’t move. Don’t breathe.It’s not a good story.
He keeps stroking my upper arm, but his dick softens until I can barely feel it. I ache for the loss of it.
“Dad paid for it. Took me to a seedy brothel and waited outside the door, which was paper-fucking-thin, while I tried to fuck a woman twice my age.” He breathes slowly, chest rising and falling against my back. “She didn’t look me in the eye. Not once. It was as though I wasn’t even there. The whole thing was over in seconds.” He stops again, but I still don’t move, feeling the heavy thump of his heart against my back. “Is that enough?”
I shake my head without glancing back at him. There’s a lump rising in my throat at the thought of him, so young, being taken to a place like that. But before I jump to conclusions, I ask, “Did you… enjoy it?”
He coughs—chokes—a spluttering, dry laugh. It jerks me in the water, my skin slipping against his.
