The First Taste(76)

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I don’t want anyone’s pity.”

I school my frown. “I’m sorry, I just—it’s shocking, is all.”

He looks down at the ground between us, and I take the reprieve to study him with new eyes. His tattoos are less intimidating now that I know their meanings. Oddly, though men with ink are typically considered tough, Andrew’s artful body makes him softer. Sweeter. I wonder if he’s always been this way, or if Bell is the reason. Shana hardened his heart and simultaneously gave it a weak spot.

“You going to make me leave now?” he asks.

My thoughts clear, and I meet his eyes. His beautiful, blue, piercing, searching eyes. Eyes that belong to a man who has the potential to hurt me. Look how far we’ve come in only one night. “You don’t want to?” I ask.

He shakes his head slowly before pushing off the counter. He stalks toward me. I place my hands on his chest as he wraps his arms around me. “I didn’t set that rule. You were the one who wanted that.”

I didn’t want that, though. I needed it. Sleepovers are scary. They’re fitting yourself to a new body, they’re that split-second confusion when you wake up with unfamiliar arms around you. Staying the night means morning breath, awkward exchanges over a whirring Keurig, closing the bathroom door in your own apartment for the first time in years. He’s right. I set the rule. I haven’t wanted him to leave since the first night we spent together, though. And now, I know about him. He knows about me. We’re damaged, our edges ragged, but is that why they seem to fit together?

“What do you want?” I ask him.

“I already told you. I want to spend the night with you.”

“And if I say no?”

“I’ll argue my case.” He adds, “Respectfully. If you don’t want me here, I won’t stay, but if you do but you’re still afraid, I won’t let that be the reason we spend another night apart.”

He says another night as if there’ve been endless nights apart. There haven’t. Not by a long shot. He really does want this. My forearms, rigid until now, give against his chest.

“I’m spent, Amelia. Let me sleep,” he says. “I’ll spoon you like you’re my favorite ice cream. Promise.”

I curl my hands into loose fists right over his heart—his real one, not his hardened one. “What does this mean, though?”

He kisses the top of my head and leads me into the bedroom. “It means good things.”

Good things.

Reggie meant good things once. It doesn’t feel the same with Andrew, though. With Reggie, everything is measured and calculated. I was never quite sure if he got that from his work, or if he exceled at his job because he was innately that way. Andrew, on the other hand, is upfront. Honest. It’s what attracted me to him that first night I met him.

I can trust him.

But after all the mistakes I made with Reggie, all the times he was out with her behind my back, the fact that I let him take from me without fighting back or even speaking up—it makes me wonder . . .

Can I trust myself?





TWENTY-ONE

ANDREW



When Amelia wakes, I’m standing at the foot of her bed in my underwear, sipping coffee and watching her. Like a f*cking creep. Great. As if the first morning with a girl isn’t awkward enough.

“Morning,” I say, breaking the silence. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good. Really well.” She sits up, rubbing one eye like Bell does after a deep sleep. Her blonde hair is tangled and full of static, messier than I’ve ever seen it. Finally, I managed to ruffle her. Hair mussed, makeup gone, skin pink where I’ve left little marks with my mouth and hands.

“God,” I groan, “you look—” I stop. I hadn’t meant to say anything out loud.

She grimaces. “I know. The bubble bath sounds nice in the moment, but it makes me all sweaty, and my makeup runs, and the humidity destroys my hair—”

“Beautiful. I was going to say you look beautiful.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t have to say that. You already got me in bed.”

I pass her my coffee. “You have a lot to learn about me.”

“Oh yeah?” She curls her hands around the mug and takes a sip, humming pleasurably. “Teach me.”

“I don’t pass out compliments. Never have, never will. I have no reason to. When I say something, it’s ’cause I mean it.”

Two red patches form on her cheeks. “All right.”

“Something else about me you should know going forward,” I say.

“Forward—”

“I don’t find beauty in the glossy stuff.”

She blinks up at me, and I think she’s attempting to suppress a smile. “Where do you find it?”

“When you get done up with your hair and makeup and dress—I like it if it’s for me. I like when you’re messy, like now, if it’s because of me. I don’t find my daughter beautiful because she has nice hair or unusual, blue eyes. She glows like a beacon from the inside. When you let me see you without hair and makeup, it makes me feel like you’re beginning to trust me, and that . . .” I pause, taking in her alarmed expression. Steam from the coffee coils around her face. “It’s really beautiful,” I finish.