Good. I didn’t want her to be anything like the girls I was used to. I wanted her to be Patience, my snowflake, her own unique self. There was no one like her and I wouldn’t want her any other way.

“Good,” I said.

She shook her head. “No, not good.”

I reached over and pulled her closer to me. Her palms landed on my chest and she looked up at me. I didn’t miss the nervous expression on her face or the fact that her body shook a little.

“Yes, it’s very good.” I ran my fingers through her hair. “The first time I saw you I knew you were different. I think you’re perfect just the way you are.” And I meant that. I really did, but that didn’t mean I wanted to say it out loud.

I was already cursing myself for saying something so lame. Why was I sitting in my car sweet-talking this girl when what I should’ve been doing was trying to get in her panties?

She reached up and pushed my hair out of my face with her finger. She was so close I could feel her warm breath against my mouth. Her eyes glowed in the darkness as she stared up at me.

“I’m far from perfect. Trust me. I’m the most flawed person I know.” She turned away.

Cupping her chin, I turned her to face me again. Her lips looked so plump and moist, even being turned down in a frown. I wanted her to smile. I wanted it like I wanted my next breath, and I wanted to kiss her. I’d fought with that one for a while, but I definitely wanted to kiss her.

“Patience.” Her name came out on an exhale.

I let my hand slip around to the side of her neck. My fingers twirled in the soft baby hairs behind her ear.

“Yeah?”

We were both breathing so hard my car windows were fogged over. It was the first time in my life I’d fogged windows doing something other than sex.

She reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear and bit at her lip like she knew what I was thinking. She closed her eyes and sighed when I ran my thumb across her bottom lip.

“I think I want to kiss you.”

There. I’d said it. It was out there and there was no taking it back. I hadn’t kissed a girl since I was fourteen. Mainly because it felt entirely too personal, but with Patience I wanted to be personal. I wanted to taste her in ways I hadn’t tasted other women, and kissing was the only way I could do that.

Her eyes widened and her throat bobbed up and down as she swallowed hard. Her breathing accelerated as I gave her a minute to let my words sink it. If she wasn’t okay with being kissed good and hard, I was giving her plenty of time to say so. I had a feeling once my mouth connected with hers it would take a lot for me to stop.

“I think I want you to kiss me,” she whispered.

I looked down at her sweet mouth and bit at my lip ring. I tilted her head up to meet mine and moved in. I let my lips skim hers and they were every bit as soft as they looked. A tiny noise escaped her mouth and I lost it.

I pressed my lips to hers and experienced a new world. I closed my eyes and took her in. She threw her arms around my neck and melted into me. I felt her fingers in the hair at the back of my neck and then her mouth opened a bit and I took that as an invitation to deepen the kiss.

It was better than sex somehow. I’d had enough sex in my life, but this was deeper. This was different. It was being inside of her on a whole other level. I was letting her breathe me in. I was breathing her in and she was the breath I needed to take for most of my life.

Everything bad went away in that moment. She soothed every scar, took away every bad memory. She made me better. My eyes were closed, but there was so much light around us. At least it felt that way, and it heated my skin. I was absorbing a healing heat and it spread through me like a euphoric fire.

I kissed her until we were out of breath and hanging on to each other. Then I broke the kiss, took a deep breath, and went in for more. I couldn’t get enough. She clung to the front of my shirt like I was her savior and I thought that was fitting since, in so many ways, she was mine. She was the sense of peace I’d been searching for in all the wrong places.

She pulled away and took another deep breath and licked at her lips. It drove me wild. She tasted me the same way I tasted her and I liked it. She pressed herself tightly against me. Her body fit to mine like she was made specifically for me, and I was beginning to think she was.

She leaned up and kissed me again and I let her take control. She pressed up into our kiss as she got up on her knees beside me. I reached behind her and hooked my hands to her hips. She was above me, around me, inside me, and then she shocked me when she slipped one leg over me and straddled my thighs.