Page 98 of Degrees of Control

“This is a purity ring,” Charlie said, trying for a little private school girl snobbery. “I made a promise to wait until I’m married. So whatever you think I’m going to do with you in this bathroom, you’re wrong.”

“Oh really?” James’ smile had grown even wider and there was a cold glitter in his hazel eyes. “So you’re tellin’ me you’re not only the prettiest girl at this party but a virgin to boot?”

She hadn’t thought this through properly. Theyhadrole played James taking her virginity before, but usually she was some drippy naïf pressured into going ‘all the way’ by a soccer coach or a preacher she’d tearfully approached about the throbbing ‘down there.’ It was a sexy fantasy but a contained one.

She and James had never combined her virgin thing with his jealousy thing. She’d never considered that the only thing that might get her boyfriend hotter than pretending to steal her off Freddie, was pretending to steal her off Freddie and then take her motherfucking virginity. She’d wanted to contain this and instead she’d just thrown gasoline on a bush fire.

“C’mon baby, tell me you’re not really a virgin?”

James was now so close their chests were touching. Charlie’s nipples tingled beneath her white shirt. She knew she could call quits to the fantasy and James would respect it, but despite her misgivings, some irresponsible part of her still wanted to see how much hotter this could get. She stuck out her lower lip. “Yes, I am.”

James let out a whistle. “Just when you thought you’d heard it all…”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“Oh, Peaches, I’m not making fun of you. I think it’s lovely you’ve decided to wait.”

His gaze made it clear that he meant she’d waited for him, for tonight. Charlie stepped backward, only to find herself pressed up against the cool bathroom wall. Casual as anything, James followed, reaching out and grasping her waist with both hands. “You like bein’ a virgin?”

His breath was warm against her face and smelled of whiskey. She liked it. She might not drink, but nothing smelled more like sex to her than whiskey on James. She pushed higher along the wall, trying to make herself taller. “I don’t like it or not like it, it’s just what I am.”

“And your man, he like it?”

She stuck out her lower lip again, knowing it made James want to kiss her, to bite her. God she wanted to be bitten. “Freddie knew what I wanted from a relationship when we met.”

James chuckled. “That’s a no, but I can’t say I blame him for wanting to wait you out, sweetheart. How long you two been goin’ steady?”

On instinct, Charlie almost said three years—the length of time she and James had been ‘going steady,’ but some part of her knew it wasn’t a good idea. “Four months.”

James laughed. “That man’s a fuckin’ idiot. I would have proposed the night I met you. Plan the wedding real fast, I could have been inside you in a month.”

Charlie didn’t like the way James’ eyes were glittering with lupine ferocity, as though rushed weddings had somehow personally offended him. She opened her mouth to ask what was wrong but James pressed his hips into hers, letting her feel how he was swollen beneath the fly of his jeans.

“Oh!”

“Yeah,” he said, brushing a palm over her breasts. “Oh.”

“I wouldn’t have said yes, if you asked me to marry you,” Charlie babbled, trying desperately to keep her head.

James laughed, low and impossibly mean. “That’s what you think, darlin’, now tilt your head back so I can kiss you.”

And she did because hormones were more powerful than sense. James crushed his mouth to hers. There was none of their easy intimacy in this kiss, it was hard and almost cruel the way that he pressed his mouth to hers. Charlie’s heart was racing so hard she could barely breathe. This was how she felt the night she met him. Electric. Confused but all too willing. He never failed to arouse her, amaze her, make her laugh, but this was initial lust reborn. Their new roles made her feel as though she’d never met this man before. That she didn’t know him at all. Again, she had that jarring sense of déjà vu, as though this, or something like this, had happened before.

James rasped a fingertip along her wrist, shooting sparks up her arm. “You ever touch yourself, darlin’?”

“What do you mean?”

“You get horny and stick your fingers between your legs? Rub yourself down until you’re moanin’ into your pillow?”

Charlie didn’t have to feign her surprise, she felt prissy in the face of his crudeness. “You shouldn’t…don’t be disgusting!”

James’ fingers moved higher, along her inner elbow and up her bicep. “Nothin’ disgustin’ about it, Peaches. It’s just what people were made to do. ‘Course it’s much better when we’re doin’ it together but that’s just somethin’ you wouldn’t know.”

His fingertips traced the curve of her shoulder, her sensitive collarbones. “I could show you, baby. In the dark, just you and me. What do you say?”

Charlie’s entire body was now on high alert. Her nipples were tight and her underwear was damp between her legs, but it wasn’t yet time to cave. “I’ve kissed boys before. They’ve touched me through my clothes. I don’t like any of that stuff. You can’t do anything for me.”

James pressed a hand to her throat, not hard, but firm.

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