Page 68 of Begin Again Again

“I’d say I’m working on it. I’m more confident in myself than I’ve ever been before. What about you? Do you like yourself?”

“What’s not to like?”

She poked his side again. “That’s not a real answer.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how’s this for an answer?”

Byron cupped her jaw and brought his mouth an inch from hers. She met him the rest of the way, her eyes narrowed, unable to resist. Byron smiled into their kiss. They made out for so long his neck began to cramp, but Byron didn’t care. Beth was moaning against his lips, her body half-turned into his. He slid a hand down her neck and into her bra. The feel of her hot skin and her nipple hard against his palm turned his cock to concrete. He urged her to turn and she went willingly, straddling him, her dress pooling around their hips like water. He gripped her ass. “Fuck, you are wearing a G-string…”

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah.” He slid his fingertips under the string, and she whimpered.

She kissed his neck, sending a jolt down his spine. His back scraped against the plastic backing of the castle. Why were they up here instead of in his room? But Byron knew why. Outside had always done it for him in a way inside hadn’t. He’d always liked public porn and losing his virginity in the garden at Xavier Bragg’s sixteenth seemed to have set that interest in stone. But he still wasn’t ready. He slid his hands from her ass and cupped her face as she kissed him. Beth shifted her hips, grinding slowly along his cock. He grunted, his whole body aching. He could fuck her here? Now? That could work, it might even be easy. It might also get him slapped on a sex-offender list… He needed to take her back to his. It would probably still work at his. Yet he had dozens of memories proving the opposite. He knew it could go either way, especially after a long Uber ride. And the last thing he wanted was to bring Beth home and show her another shit time.

Beth pulled back, staring into his face. “Byron?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to be a dick…”

His chest contracted.

“… but it kind of feels like you don’t want to take me home?”

He frowned up at the sky, waiting for her to say something else. Then he remembered what she’d said about silence making her paranoid. “I’m a bit… yeah. I dunno.”

She kissed him lightly. “I’m not judging. Just curious. And insanely horny.”

He tried to say something, but the bone was back in his throat. There was too much understanding in her eyes—too much kindness. Beth pinched her lower lip between her fingers. She was going to leave; Byron could feel it. He unlocked his jaw. “I… haven’t been with anyone since my ex.”

“Audrey?”

It was wrong to hear her say it. A glass needle slipping off her tongue. Beth looked apologetic. “Sal mentioned her.”

Byron’s back and hips ached. He desperately wanted to get away from the playground.

“She must have been important to you,” Beth said. “To still be on your mind?”

“It’s not that.”

But he couldn’t say anything else, not without saying everything else.

Beth smiled, her brown eyes soft. “We can take the pressure off, you know? Just hang out?”

Byron looked away; his chest so tight it hurt. “I… I really want to. With you.”

“I get it. I’m happy to wait.”

“Is that a promise?” he said, trying and failing to sound like he was joking.

She kissed him again, light as a brush from a butterfly’s wing. “That’s a guarantee.”

Byron pulled her closer, kissed her deep and hard and urgent. It was the only way he could think of to thank her.

---