She hates the word moist? What’s wrong with the word moist?

“You hate horny? You don’t have time to be horny?” I say it again, twice, just to embarrass her. “You’re shitting me, right? Everyone has time to be horny. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It’s perfectly normal not to be turned on all the time.”

“No. It’s not.” At least, I don’t think it is.

“How would you even know? You’re not a female.”

“No, but I’ve seen enough of them around campus and at parties to know most are sex-crazed lunatics.”

“Are you high right now?” she barks at me through the shadows. “Who are you hanging out with? Absolutely no one is running around campus like a sex-crazed lunatic, except maybe the guys.”

“False. I am not a sex-crazed lunatic.”

“What are you then? Because I doubt you’re a virgin.”

Definitely not a virgin. “No. I just swore off girls when they became too much trouble.”

“Trouble? How?”

“You know, wanting to get serious and shit.”

“Ah, so you’re one of thooose.” She drags the word out, as if she’s finally cracked my code, satisfaction lacing every syllable. “A commitment-phobe.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Pfft. Try me.”

“Nope. We are not having this conversation.” Especially not in the middle of the night.

“Oh, but we are.” If we were seated at a table, she’d be crossing her arms and leaning back, waiting for my reply like a boss. Giving me the stink eye. Puffing on a cigar, killing me with silence.

“Let’s just agree to disagree, okay? I don’t need to justify why I’m not into dating, and you don’t need to justify why you don’t like touching yourself downtown.”

“Oh my god.”

I uncurl myself, rolling to my back, gaze staring up at the ceiling in the pitch black.

“I have a question for you: what if I like it so much I never want to have sex with a guy?”

“What if you love jerking yourself off so much you never want to have sex with a dude? I don’t even know how to respond to that, Teddy.”

The thought is inconceivable.

“But that’s what happened to you, right? You masturbated yourself single. You don’t need a female. You have two hands to keep you satisfied.”

There’s probably an element of truth to that, but, “Sometimes it’s not enough.”

Jesus. Why did I admit that out loud?

“I could have told you that, and I’m not even doing it. You can’t replace real intimacy, Kip, no matter how hard you try.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’ll keep that in mind.”

Teddy only gives me a few seconds of reprieve before she hits me with her next assault. “Why don’t you like having people over?”

I sigh, long and loudly into the dark, tucking my arms behind my head. “Who said I don’t like having people over?”

I feel her shrug when the mattress dips, though I can’t see it.

“I just assumed since you never have people over.” She pauses, uncertain. “Is it because you’re embarrassed?”

Is she serious? “Embarrassed about what?”

“That you…that your…” She falters, searching for the right words.

I wait her out.

“It’s pretty obvious you come from money, okay?”

Teddy has no idea.

“I don’t think you should be ashamed of it,” she goes on in the dark.

“I’m not.”

“Whatever you say, Kipling Carmichael.” Teddy laughs, wiggling her feet. They’re dainty, and small, and feel good still tucked beneath me. “God, even that name sounds…rich, like you should be on a yacht somewhere in the Pacific.”

The Atlantic, actually. That’s where the boat is docked, at some marina with a yacht club, near one of several Carmichael vacation homes.

“It’s not a crime coming from money, just like it’s not a crime for me to be—I don’t know, poor, I guess. A scholarship kid. I’m not ashamed, though I used to be. Not anymore. I work my ass off, and so does my mom.”

Her body shivers.

“You can move over a little if you’re still cold.” I know I am. My nuts are shriveled up, practically ascended into my body.

“No funny business.”

As if.

“Just scoot your ass over here.”

“Okay, okay. So bossy.”

Teddy’s feet pull out from under me and soon the heat from her flat stomach, from between her legs, and from her tits are burning my skin where she’s pressed up against me.

Goddamn. When I told her to scoot over, I didn’t mean Singe me with all your best parts. How the fuck am I supposed to sleep with the apex of her thighs straddling my hip?

Next, she throws her arm over my chest, fingers casually resting on the bicep opposite, hand falling limp.

“Oh my god, you are so warm! This feels so amazing.” She hunkers down closer, squeezing me. “Mmm, heaven.”

Her long, dark hair tickles my nostrils, and I draw in a breath to sniff it as discretely as I can.

Clean and fruity and I want to bury my nose in it.

And my hands.

Those lie limply at my sides, one buried beneath her, the other on the mattress—

“Your beard tickles.”

“So does your hair.” Hair I’m tempted to sink my fingers into, to test its weight and feel how soft it is.

We lie like this for who knows how long, my chest heaving up and down, heart rate accelerated like I’ve just run a mile. I wonder if she can hear it beating—if she knows she’s the reason it’s racing.

“I’ve never been this comfortable in my entire life.” She sighs, content. “I could lie like this every night.”

“Only because your survival instincts kicked in.”

“Or because you’re like a giant teddy bear.”

Suddenly, Teddy pulls away. In the shadow of the moon shining through the window, I watch her sit up and pull the fabric of her sweatshirt up and over her head, tossing it to the end of the bed.

What’s left is the silhouette of her breasts veiled in a thin T-shirt, and when she lies back down beside me, the hard peaks of her nipples graze my ribcage.

“It’s warm enough under these covers I don’t need that anymore.”

She settles back in, curling into my side, really making herself at home against my body. Hikes her leg over my thigh, the warmest parts of her boiling my skin.

“Mmm.”

I can literally feel the fucking heat from her pussy against my leg.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa—what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

What I should do is shove her off the bed, onto the floor, and get the fuck out of my own room. Fast.

She pats me on the chest, her touch more of a caress than a chastising reprimand.

“Relax! You’re like one of those pregnancy body pillows I’ve seen in Target. Stop moving around so much or you’re going to mess up my positioning.”

A pregnancy body pillow? What the fuck is she talking about?

I can’t concentrate when her delicate hand, which was previously resting innocently on my arm, begins to wander, finger trailing over my left pec, hand pressing into my skin. Poking. Kneading at my muscles.

“Could your body be any harder?”

Yup.

Yes, I can be harder.

Keep that shit up and you’ll find out just how hard I can be.

“Jeez, Kip—how often do you work out? All day, every day?”

“Please stop.”

Poke.

Poke.

“Teddy, stop.”

“Oh please—you’re immune to me, remember?”

I’m only immune to you when your perky set of amazing tits isn’t pressed against my body in the middle of the fucking night, reminding me how fucking long it’s been since I’ve boned someone.

“I never said I was immune to you, Teddy. I said I wasn’t dating anyone or having sex.”

“And I said I was curious. It’s harmless, I’m not going to try anything—I wouldn’t even know how.”