Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
The voice that comes out of me is not my own. It’s gentle and soft. “Rip off the Band-Aid, Whit.”
My hand still lingers on his cheek.
Our breaths mingle, because I can’t move away. I can’t be the one to kiss him again, even though everything inside me really wants to.
The next move needs to come from Whit.
He’s stunned for a moment, completely frozen by the switch in mood. But then he takes the opening I’ve given him. His mouth comes back to mine, only this time it moves ever so slightly. Just enough for the roughness of his stubble to sting the top of my lip and send a jolt of want down my spine.
That’s not even the craziest thing. The craziest part is it doesn’t freak me out. It doesn’t make me think, Oh, shit, I’m kissing a guy. All it makes me think is, I’m kissing Whit, and I want more. Give me more.
As if reading my mind, Whit’s mouth opens, and I follow his lead.
I’m the one who’s experienced in kissing here, but he’s the one teaching me new things. Like the power behind a man’s mouth.
Whit’s tongue parts my lips as it seeks entrance, and I let it inside.
A needy moan comes from the back of his throat, and fuck if that doesn’t turn me on.
The surprise doesn’t come when my cock hardens in my jeans. It doesn’t even come when our tongues tangle or when my moans match his. The surprise comes from the neediness inside me to keep this going.
But Whit doesn’t give me the chance.
He pulls back. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I murmur and try to kiss him again. Just don’t stop this. Not yet.
“I can’t …” He pulls back. “Sorry, I—”
“You what?” My lips are swollen, my eyes heavy-lidded.
“It shouldn’t be like this. I’m not … I …”
Wow, so he’s really not into me, then. Tanner was way wrong.
I make my way back to my side of the couch.
Whit runs a hand through his shiny brown hair. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
He didn’t, though. That’s all on me.
I messed up. “I kissed you. Technically.”
“It was a favor to me.”
He’s talking as if my motivations were purely selfless when they aren’t. I wanted to kiss him. It may have been disguised as something else, but it was definitely not a selfless act. And now he’s sitting there feeling guilty when it’s me who has done the wrong thing.
“It wasn’t that,” I say, but can I really tell him the truth?
That I’ve developed some confusing obsession with his love life? And the thought of him going home with Ian tonight made me want to do everything to stop it?
It had nothing to do with how much alcohol he had. It’s just that when he’d told me he had never kissed another person …
Fuck, I’m an asshole. “I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have taken that from you.”
Whit averts his gaze and refuses to look at me.
“I really am sorry.” No matter how hot and enlightening that kiss was.
I’m not scared of the kiss. I’m scared of what it means. What it could mean. And it’s not so much the label that scares me, but that everything I’ve thought for twenty-six years isn’t at all the reality.
It’s the notion that there has always been this unknown thing inside me waiting for the right person to come along and show it to me.
Or I could be blowing things out of proportion and am jumping to conclusions for no reason. If that’s the case, I can’t rely on Whit to help me figure it out.
Even if it does sound kind of perfect. He gets some experience, and I explore … whatever the fuck it is going on with me.
I couldn’t do that to Whit, though. He’s become important to me. A great friend. Something I haven’t had in a long time.
Whit leans forward and puts his head in his hands. “Oh my God, my first-kiss story will always be about a straight guy. I can hear the awws of sympathy and pity now.”
“Don’t think of it that way,” I say, and finally, he pierces me with his gaze. “Your first kiss was with a good friend who respects the hell out of you.”
Truer words have never been spoken, but that doesn’t mean kissing him was right.
We sit in awkward silence, and I hate what I just did to him. At the same time, I don’t want to take it back. “If it makes you feel any better, you’re a really good kisser.”
Whit laughs. “Good kisser for a guy, you mean?”
“No. Gender is an outdated construct. A smart hockey player told me that once.”
“Smart hockey player. Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
“You’re an oxymoron … hold the oxy.”
Whit shoves me, so I get the cushion he uses as a pillow and hit him in the side of the head with it.