Put Me Back Together(62)

“I’m not saying it to embarrass you,” Lucas said, pulling at my hands, though I kept them clamped over my eyes. “All I’m saying is considering what I was just doing to you, it was easy to tell your mind was elsewhere. You were barely paying attention. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

I could hear my heart pounding in my ears, louder than any drum. I gazed into his kind eyes, afraid to speak. Would it matter to him? Would it turn him off? Would it make him walk away?

And if he did, could I stand it?


“Are you—” Lucas began until I interrupted him, graceless to the last.

“I’m a virgin,” I blurted.

Lucas clamped his mouth shut but didn’t break our gaze. I couldn’t read the expression on his face, but I did feel him take his hands off my ass and smooth my dress down over it.

“I’m sorry, that was stupid,” I said, frowning.

“What’s stupid? Being a virgin is stupid, or telling me about it?” Lucas said, rubbing my arms lightly. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Peering at his face, it began to dawn on me that he didn’t seem particularly perturbed. In fact, he didn’t even seem all that surprised.

“You already knew, didn’t you?” I said, and the fact that he didn’t deny it right away gave me my answer. “Oh, just kill me now,” I moaned, pressing my forehead into his shoulder. I tried to scramble off his lap, but he held me in place by my legs.

“Katie,” he murmured into my ear. “Don’t hide from me.”

“This is mortifying!” I said still refusing to raise my head. “Here I thought I was being all hot and seductive, and all this time you knew I had no idea what I was doing!”

“Who really knows what they’re doing, anyway?” Lucas said flippantly. “And for the record, I think you were doing a pretty good job at seducing me. For your first try, I’d say that was an expert-level performance. Two thumbs up.”

I punched him on the arm. “Stop trying to make me laugh, I’m too embarrassed.”

“What’s so embarrassing about being inexperienced?” he said, running his fingers up and down my spine, sending fluttering waves through my body.

This time I did look up at him. “Think about how old you were when you first had sex.” I could see his mind going back to that day. “Right, now subtract that number by how old I am right now, and maybe you’ll get why this is so embarrassing. I bet you were having sex when you were fourteen.”

Lucas pursed his lips and looked up at the ceiling.

“Oh my God!” I cried. “You really were fourteen! You must think I’m a freak.”

His hand reached up and covered my mouth. “Don’t say things like that about yourself,” he said, which quieted me. Nobody had ever interrupted the hateful dialogue in my head before, probably because I never said it out loud in front of anyone. I didn’t quite know how to react. “You know what I thought when I figured it out? I thought, how could this stunning girl have possibly managed to escape the notice of every guy she’s ever met in her nineteen years on Earth? Because if I’d been there…well, let’s just say your high school memories would be a little more X-rated.”

This made me feel a little better, though not completely. “How’d you figure it out, anyway? Am I that bad of a kisser?”

“I don’t know, let’s check,” Lucas said, leaning in and placing his lips on mine, teasing my mouth open with his. He smiled against my lips. “Seems pretty great to me.”

“How, then?”

“Remember the day when we went to the basketball game, when I leaned you up against the car?” he said.

Did I remember? It was pretty much seared in my brain—the first time I’d really realized how much I wanted him.

“I was just playing with you, trying to make you admit you liked it, even though you kept insisting you wanted to be ‘just friends.’ But then I saw your lips trembling and I could tell I was moving a little too fast. I put two and two together and I just knew.”

“And it doesn’t make you want me less?” I asked him, wishing my voice didn’t sound so weak and small.

“I really don’t think it’s a question of how much I want you,” Lucas said. Placing his hands on the small of my back, he very gently pressed me forward until I was right up against him, my panties pressing right against his crotch, and I could feel how hard he was right through his jeans. The slight pressure in that oh-so-sensitive place made my body flush all over again.

“Even now, while we’re talking? We aren’t even kissing,” I said, my voice very low. It seemed wrong to be talking about this in anything other than a whisper.

He wrapped his arms around me, somehow pulling me even closer, and the whole room seemed to shake as we rubbed together, the sensations that had been coursing through my body all redirecting their energy to that one little place. “Whenever you’re around me,” he said, his lips against my cheek. “In the car, at dinner, even in class.” He moved his hips and I let out a gasp. “This is what you do to me.”

Throwing my arms around his neck, I pushed my mouth against his, my every reservation disintegrating as my whole body throbbed.

“Take me to the bedroom,” I breathed into his ear, and I heard him take just one ragged breath in response before he stood up, my legs still wrapped around him, and carried me down the hall.