Page 77 of Opposites (Never) Attract
She laughed but her mood was pensive. Which wasn’t the right mood for a big welcome home party.
“Okay,” I said, stretching out my legs as best I could. “But I’m a better kisser than I am a cowboy.”
She chuckled, but her mood didn’t change. So I did what I always did with quiet unsure creatures. I waited.
“Twenty-seven,” she finally said.
My expression must have read confused.
“That’show old I was when I lost my virginity. I bet nobody bet that high. It was awful and awkward. Of course, I couldn’t tell the guy I was dating at the time. That would just put me further in the weird column. But, he figured it out anyway, and then I never heard from him again. But, at least it was done.”
“Shit, Sun,” I cursed. “I’m sorry that was your first experience.”
“I had such a crush on you in high school,” she said, batting away my sympathy with her hand. “I used to think about how you could be my first time. That’s probably embarrassing for you. I’m sorry.”
“I knew you had a crush on me,” I said, with an easy smile. “I could feel those four eyes burrowing into the back of my head during geometry class.”
She laughed. “Anyway, it got better. Sort of. Then I figured out…what I like.”
Every muscle in my body contracted. Because, whoever it was who had shown Sunshine the rough side of sex was going to have to die by my hands.
“Oh, no, not like that,” she said, correctly interpreting my darkening expression. “Through books and movies. There was this one book. The girl cut herself, to stop the noise in her head. And I felt so seen by that, you know? So understood. I tried it and realized I can’t handle the sight of blood, so… there was that.”
“Geezus, darlin. What is in your head?”
“Sometimes too much. Sometimes more than I can handle. That’s when I started doing all those spa treatments. All the women in the office were like,beauty is pain.So I thought that might be a better solution. One stone, two birds and all that. I found those core shock treatments and I didn’t think at all for twenty minutes, at least once a week.It was wonderful. Then one day, this very stubborn cowboy decided to join me and ruined everything.”
She leaned way over her frog and bumped her shoulder against mine to let me know I hadn’t really ruined everything. I’d just seen something she kept hidden from the world.
“I am a stubborn cowboy,” I admitted, even as I took some comfort in knowing she’d discovered her particular kink through beauty treatments, and hadn’t ended up with some creep who might have actually hurt her.
The kind of sex Sunshine wanted required a ridiculous amount of trust. Which obviously didn’t happen easily for her, given how long she’d waited to have sex. But she almost immediately had that trust with me.
There was that feeling again. That lightness in my chest. I was not familiar with this feeling. It was a little bit like the sensation of a particularly hard job done well. But, it was something else too, and I didn’t have a name for it.
“I don’t know why I told you all that,” she said, staring up at a sky filled with brilliant stars. “Stuff just sort of comes out when I’m around you.”
“That’s because I’m almost as good a listener as I am a kisser,” I told her.
She turned her attention from the stars to me, her face very serious in the moonlight. “I can’t kiss you, Tag. I need to go home at some point. I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged here.”
“That’s what’s always been in your head,” I agreed. “Ever since you were a little girl. But you should start looking at this place through adult eyes. You might not see it the same way.”
I could already feel the loss of her in my bones, and she’d just gotten here. Whatever this was between us, itwasn’t just sexy fun. I respected the shit out of her. Ilikedher.
I felt it the second I saw her in her fancy office.
If I was being honest, it had been there back in high school.
I didn’t just know she had a crush on me.
Ilikedthat she had a crush on me.
There was something about having all that serious focus trained on me. Because I knew she was special, the fact that she’d picked me out of the entire high school to crush on, made me feel special.
And that wasn’t something I felt a whole lot of.
Silly to get that validation from a fifteen-year-old girl. And creepy, so I’d deliberately stayed away from her. But now she was here. She was back. And I could admit it…part of me wanted her to stay.
