From the Jump(69)

Embarrassment hits like a bucket of ice water, dumping over me and extinguishing all of my heat. Never have I so completely lost myself. Years of performing perfunctorily in gorgeous, expensive lingerie, and the one time it really matters, I’ve shown up like a pig at the county fair. I cringe and tug my knees together.

“Don’t,” Deiss says in an unrecognizably gruff voice.

I look up apprehensively and discover his eyes scanning the length of me. They’re dark beneath his furrowed brow, filled with reverence like he’s discovered a priceless piece of art. His fingers run across my leg in featherlight strokes before he lifts it to press a kiss into my ankle. He’s shadowed in the weak light that leaks through the window, dark and mysterious and impossibly gorgeous.

“I like you like this,” he says, “all wild.”

Slowly, he slips my tank top down the length of me, his fingers stroking my hips as they pass and then my thighs. He works his way slowly back up, kissing every inch of me until the world goes hazy again and I’m too filled with pleasure to think of anything but the feel of his mouth against my skin. When his body covers mine completely, he cups his hand beneath my head like I’m something precious.

We kiss slowly this time, not like two people hurrying to make up for the past but two people desperate to hold onto the moment. I press into him, warm and delicious. And when he finally pushes inside me, I feel just as out of control as I did when we started, but in an entirely new way.

“You’re amazing,” he murmurs into my shoulder after we’ve collapsed, intertwined and satiated, onto our backs. “I’ve always been so in awe of you.”

“No, you haven’t.” I don’t want his pillow talk. It just reminds me this is normal for him. While I’ve never experienced anything like what we just did, I have to assume it’s always like that for him. After all, he is the one who provided the experience.

“I have.” He strokes my arm lightly, tracing a line from my wrist to elbow. “I used to study you all the time back in school, trying to figure out how you could be so untouched by it all. Everyone else on campus was copying each other, playing their roles as college kids, but you knew exactly who you wanted to be.”

“But I didn’t.” The confession slips out, even though I’d like nothing more than to let myself believe the pretty picture he’s painted. “I only knew who I was supposed to be. I was trying to be perfect.”

“You think I don’t understand that?” He leans over and presses a soft kiss against my shoulder. “I’ve been watching you for eleven years. But you’re missing the point. I was in awe that you tried so hard for yourself. You weren’t attempting to be perfect so the other girls would be jealous or the boys would want you. You hardly seemed to notice what anyone thought of you at all. It was your own standards that dictated who you wanted to be, and I thought that was inspiring.”

“But you told me to get off the treadmill,” I argue.

“I suggested it because nobody needs you to be perfect, including you.” The corner of his mouth quirks up. “But I certainly didn’t tell you to do anything. I’d never dream of telling Olivia Bakersfield how to behave.”

I laugh, but my chest swells in a way that’s almost painful. This feels like yet another twist I’m unprepared for. First, the closeness. Then, the lust. Now . . . whatever this is. Deiss’s appreciation of me? His ability to see me so clearly and translate my flaws into something I can be proud of?

It’s overwhelming. Even my mother, the one person who’s always known me, chose to pretty me up with makeup so she could view me through a filter. I don’t know how to face someone who’s managed to see through it all. Even if Deiss does seem to appreciate what he’s uncovered.

“I like you.” I blurt the words out, flinching as they hit the air. Never ever show your cards first. “I don’t know what any of this means to you, but I do. I like you so much.”

“Typical.” He shakes his head, a smile stretching across his face.

“Typical?” I whisper, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. “I swear on my life, Lucas Deiss, if you’re trying to say every woman falls for you the moment you take her to bed, I’m going to push you out the window.”

“That sounds fair,” he says, still grinning. “But actually, I meant it was typical that you say you like me, when just the other day I told you I love you.”

His words hit like a bomb. One filled with glitter, stunning me and filling my vision with sparkly flecks. He can’t mean it, can he? Not like that. My eyes narrow as I take in his amusement.

“You didn’t want me, though,” I say. “Not like that.”

“I’ve always wanted you. But it was more important to keep you as a friend. I was scared of losing you.”

“And now?”

“I’m still scared,” he admits. “Phoebe was right to make the pact, you know. This could ruin everything.”

My heart races. “Should we stop?”

“Definitely.” Deiss slides me toward him by my waist and captures my mouth with his, kissing me until I’m pressing eagerly into him.

Breathless, I pull back. “Are we going to?”

He slays me with a grin. “Not a chance.”