Put Me Back Together(100)

“You’re making it impossible to resist you,” Lucas panted. “I mean, I’m in physical pain here. It’s unkind, what you’re doing.”

“I beg to differ,” I said. He was leaning on his side and I looped my leg over his hip, drawing even closer. Feeling exploded in my groin as I felt him brush against me there. “I think I’m being very kind.”

“Katie,” he said, his breath ragged as I let my mouth explore his chest, while my hands took on a mind of their own. “Kat…oh my God,” he moaned, gritting his teeth as I let my lips creep lower and lower and lower. In the end, he had to pull me up and bind me in a mammoth hug, his arms pinning me still to get my attention. “Are you sure about this?” he said. “Do you really want your memories of our first time to be all mixed up with… I don’t want you to regret this. Having sex just because you want to forget, it’s not—”

Dislodging my arm, I reached up and pressed my hand to his lips.

“I want to do this now because you held my hand while I broke the news to my parents,” I said. “Because you defended me to my sister. Because you moved in to my apartment to keep me safe. Because you poured me a bubble bath. Because you’re more concerned about my first time than I am.” His dimples popped and I ran my fingers over them. “I’m not trying to escape, or to lose myself, or to prove anything. I just want you, Lucas. I just love you so much that all the rest of it doesn’t even register. Not when I’m with you.”

I had to catch my breath after I was done. That was a lot of feelings and a lot of words for me. It had to be some kind of record. But it was worth it, because I’d never seen Lucas look so enamored of me before. When he kissed me then, softly at first, teasing open my lips with his tongue, and then gradually deeper and with such intensity, I thought to myself, This is what it feels like to be loved completely. I wanted to wrap myself up in that feeling. I wanted to wrap myself up in him, so I did.

When the moment came at last and he hovered above me, his chest against mine, I felt a shiver of fear, remembering how hard I had fought to avoid this kind of intimacy. I would never be more vulnerable than this, more naked, more open. And I could never take it back.

He brushed his lips against mine. “Are you ready?” he whispered, and I knew. I would never really be ready. Not totally. Not one hundred percent. There would always be a part of me that would want to push the world away, to hide myself, to guard against anything good, assuming it would turn bad. But I could still choose who I wanted to be, and I wanted to be with Lucas, even if he was bad news, out of my league, and one hundred percent trouble. I was ready to take this leap, as long as he was taking it with me.

“Yes,” I said, and our eyes locked as he rocked into me, filling me, tipping me over into a new place I’d never been to before. A place where I could be seen without shaking. A place where I could be held without breaking. A place where we could put me back together.





25





Lucas pulled the car into the school parking lot and we both looked out at the playing field on the other side of the fence. There was a group of boys playing a game of touch football while other kids sat in clumps on the bleachers. Three girls sitting on a bench on the sidelines seemed particularly interested in the game, though they were pretending not to be. The one in the middle reminded me so much of Emily at that age that it made my heart ache.

“There he is,” I said, pointing at a boy with light hair wearing a blue t-shirt.

“Are you sure about this?” Lucas said. He placed a hand on my arm and it was as though an electric current was running through my body. It had been like this since the moment I’d woken up in his arms, our bare skin glued together, our bodies ready and eager before we were even fully awake. We’d made love before breakfast and then again in the shower before we checked out of the hotel, and now every time he touched me it was like he was flicking a switch. I swear, if we hadn’t been parked in the middle of a schoolyard, I would have taken him then and there.

I might have been embarrassed except that the silly grin on Lucas’s face told me he was feeling the exact same way. He pulled me into a kiss that became hotter than I think it was intended to be, his fingers smoothing my skin at that place where my shirt met the waist of my jeans, my hands running through his hair.

“Because you don’t have to,” Lucas said as we broke apart, both of us a little short of breath.

“Don’t have to what?” I said. My head was a little hazy, swimming in Lucas’s scent, but then I shook it briskly and came back to my senses. “Oh, right. This. No, I’m sure. I want to.” I put my hand on the door handle, readying to get out.

Lucas frowned, making me pause. I hated to see even the tiniest bit of distress on that gorgeous face. “It just seems like you’re punishing yourself, Katie. And you know you don’t have to do that.”

Cupping his cheek with my palm, I gave him a reassuring look. “It’s okay,” I said. “I just want to talk to him. It’s something I should have done a long time ago. Not because I owe him but just because…because I need to, I guess.”

I looked back out at the field, feeling a little less sure myself now.

“Because you feel guilty?” Lucas asked, brushing a lock of hair behind my ear.