Page 10 of Jagged Line Paradise

Andrés has lit a fire that blazes and warms me in all the good places. His hair in my fingers is soft and thick—a perfect tether for me to dig my fingers into and keep him tied into me.

I don’t want to have sex—I’m not ready for it. But every sparking nerve-ending prickling beneath my skin tells me that Andrés is the guy I want that experience with. I should’ve known it all along.

It’s shiny and new and familiar all at once.

I’m not ready to lose my virginity tonight, though. And I don’t want to rush. It’s too much, too soon. I don’t want this fire to burn out fast—I want it to build and consume us like a wildfire that can’t be put out.

But I think some heavy petting is okay. In fact, it might be necessary. I’m so embarrassingly wet between my legs that I feel like a freaking dog in heat. As awkward as I feel, though, there’s something incredible about being this turned-on with another person who is just as turned-on as I am.

I’ve never known Andrés this way, and I would’ve said before today that I knew everything about him. Knowing him like this—knowing what he sounds like, what he smells like, feels like,tasteslike when he’s wanting—this is a kind of intimacy that’s literally blowing my innocent mind.

So, maybe my mind isn’t all that innocent, but my reality has been…until this moment where my best friend is lying on top of me in his bed, kissing me like we’re heathens, and grinding into me like he wants me.

He wants me.

Andrés Hernandez wants me.

Holy wow.

“Touch me,” I blurt out and immediately clamp my hand over my mouth to keep from shouting out anything else embarrassing.

“I plan to,” Andrés replies with the utmost seriousness. His voice is heavy and insistent. His hands move between us, and suddenly, he pops upright, sitting back on his knees.

Pieces of his dark hair fall softly across his forehead. My legs are spread on either side of him as he reaches for the button of my jean shorts, and I gasp when his knuckles graze my skin. He tugs his lip ring between his teeth for just a second and when it pops out, his smile is twisted sinfully at the corner of his mouth. His dark eyes are somehow darker, and I have never been more desperately attracted to someone in all my life.

He still looks like Andrés, but new.

Man, not a boy.

Crush, not a friend.

Sex-god, not a human.

The zipper comes down and the ripping sound instantly makes me aware that my pants are undone in my best friend’s bedroom and he wants to touch me…there.

He bends over me, placing his palms on either side of my waist, and he gives me unflinching, unnerving eye contact. “I wanna make you come. I fucking fantasize about it every goddamn night.”

“Every night?”

He nods. “Every night.”

“I’m nervous,” I tell him, because it’s true, and because I tell him everything.

“I know. But you don’t need to be. I’m just gonna use my fingers. I promise, Lonnie, it’s gonna feel so good.”

He keeps his eyes on me as he lowers and slips along my side. He lays on the bed beside me, his bare chest pressed tightly against my side and his erection hard, digging into my hip.

It feels strange, but it’s agoodstrange.

He props up onto his elbow, head in hand, as the fingers of his other hand creep down my stomach, seeking the place that I’ve given no one else the privilege to explore. I pant through heavy breaths of lust and fear and fearful lusting as his fingers slowly graze from belly button to the open flap of my shorts. They touch the hem of my panties and I’m so, so,soglad I’m wearing my decent white silk pair instead of something stupid, like the ones with the penguin printed across the butt.

What was I thinking when I bought those anyway?

His fingers lift the silky hem and slip beneath, just barely, and still, I feel like I might die from the intimacy of this. It feels so…dirty. Not in a bad way. It’s just that it’s something primal and carnal and raw, and we’re not doing it alone. We’re doing ittogether.

“You okay?” he asks as his whole hand disappears beneath my underwear.

My eyes drift shut, but my mind is still here with him, fully here in the moment. “Yes.”

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