“Please,” he breathes, his voice strained and gravelly. “You want to make me beg, is that it? Is that on your list? Because I just might do it. For you.”

“No more after this.”

His grip on my hip tightens, and the hand on my cheek slides into my hair. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t skip any more classes after this. I won’t.”

He exhales, and the tight hold he has on me loosens. He thought I meant sex, that I meant no more of that. And his reaction, the way his whole body stiffened, takes away the last of my unease. I’m not the only one on edge here. I’d thought after the way I pulled him in here last night, the way I initiated things, that he had all the power. But I’ve got some, too.

“Shower?” I ask, and I can’t help but think of the night that I’d turned on all the lights in the house. His smile sweeps away the loneliness in a way that never could.

I CHECK OFF another first in the shower when Mateo kneels in front of me and teases me with his mouth and his fingers. I’m sore, and when I wince he places an apologetic kiss just below my belly button. He only uses his mouth from then on, and it takes me a long time to come, long enough that I try to stop him on more than one occasion because I feel bad for his knees, but he only laces his fingers through mine and pushes my hand back against the tile wall. When my orgasm does come, it’s slower than last night’s. Less detonation and more crashing wave. It starts at his mouth, and crests in my belly before, flowing out through all the rest of me. My legs don’t flail this time, but they do go numb, and if my back weren’t against the tile, I’m certain I wouldn’t have been able to keep my balance.

I want to return the favor, but I’m so deliciously exhausted from his long exploration of me with his mouth that my hands are shaky.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He takes my hand and wraps it around his erection. He has me squeeze harder than I expected, but under the fall of the shower, he slips through my fist easily. I try to kneel, but Mateo grabs my hips and keeps me upright.

“I’m already close,” he says. “A few times I thought I might come just with my mouth on you.”

He gets harder in my hand; bigger, too. And I’m embarrassed that for all I know about biology, I’m still surprised by his body, by how it works. Then he stiffens. He presses a hand into the wall by my head and leans his face into the crook of my neck as he groans. He jerks and pulses, and comes against my stomach.

And even though I’d been exhausted moments before, now I’m alert . . . and curious.

This is what I wanted to know. When I’d added losing my virginity to my bucket list, it had been no more than a mechanical act. It had been about the body, and that side of things is interesting enough. I do want to touch and explore and discover more, but it’s everything else I’d been naive about. Sex is about more than bodies.

And I don’t mean love, though I’m sure that does change the equation, too. I mean . . . he was on the edge just from giving me pleasure. He hadn’t even touched himself. I know because I remember vividly having his hands on my hips and our fingers tangled together and his grip on my thighs.

That’s the side of sex that fascinates me, what made me curious enough to watch that couple in the library. Pleasure isn’t just about touching the right places or making the right movements. There’s another element to it. And I don’t know what it’s called or how it works, but I want to.

I want to know everything.

Chapter 22

Mateo

It’s amazing how one night can change everything. Not just the sex, but everything, from the moment I first entered her apartment.

Talking to Nell about her doubts somehow inadvertently lessened mine. Neither of us found any solutions at dinner that Sunday, but talking about it, commiserating with someone else who’s facing a similar situation, makes it easier to bear.

And of course, the mind-blowing sex didn’t hurt either.

I find myself using Nell as my mental shield. As the next game approaches and the pressure mounts to perform as well as I did last week, I use her face to push away the thoughts of failure. When I start to stress about living up to the expectations of my coach and my team and myself, I think about her in her kitchen or her spread over my lap in my truck or her taking her own pleasure against me in her bed.

When I think about her, nothing can fucking touch me.

Then I have to think about something else entirely for a while because thinking of Nell like that while I’m in public always presents a problem.

I live for the moment when I can see her again, when I can park my fears and stresses at the door and lose myself in her arms. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I should be thinking about what this means. She’s graduating next month, and even though she’s not leaving immediately, she will leave eventually.

But I tell myself I’ve got time. I’ll figure out exactly what it all means later.

Whatever she’s doing to me, it consumes me enough to overcome my insecurities and fears. She pushes everything else out, delays the doubts, and I ride that solution all the way to another win on Saturday. I end up with a few less catches, but two of them were huge plays with major yardage. And at the end of the game, Coach claps a hand on top of my shoulder pad, and the look in his eyes says it all.

It’s happening.

We’re now 8–2, and one of those losses wasn’t even conference play. With two games left, we’re finally starting to make some waves. They’re calling us the “big surprise” of the season and the “little team with big heart.” And it feels like we’re on the verge of something huge.

Something real.

Which is a little how I’m feeling in all aspects of my life lately.

The Monday after the game, I’m feeling high on life and on Nell. As I promised her when we’d been texting after our last away game, I spent the week texting her dirty things. She hadn’t quite texted me anything dirty back yet, but she’d asked a few questions. Why I said certain things, what I liked. I figured I was close to getting her to text me back.

I send her one quick text before I lock up my phone for practice.

I’m about to put the phone away when I’m surprised by her immediate reply.

Fuck. How the hell am I going to be able to concentrate on practice now? I’m an idiot.