Living Out Loud (Austen, #3)(58)

I turned around to face him, slipping my arms around his neck, though I wondered if he was asking me if I wanted to go or if he wanted me to thank him. I couldn’t do either.

Trepidation hung over me like a dark, heavy cloud. “Please tell me we can get tickets for another night?”

His pleased smile slipped into a frown. “You have plans?”

I nodded, not wanting to say with whom I had plans.

“You can’t get out of it?”

“Well, I could, but I made those plans first. Can you really not get tickets for another night, Will?” I asked gently.

He brushed my hair from my face. “I can get tickets for almost any night, sure. Where are you going?”

I almost lied. I probably should, but alas, I was the worst liar in history and knew it. “To Romeo and Juliet at the Lincoln Center. Greg got us tickets.”

Everything about his face hardened, even his eyes. Maybe his eyes most of all. “You’re kidding, Annie. Please, tell me you’re kidding.”

I shook my head.

“You know he likes you, don’t you?”

I huffed. “Not you too.”

He stepped away from me and raked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. You don’t take a friend to the ballet.”

“And why not?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.

“Because you just don’t. He likes you, and you’re going on a date with him.”

“It’s not a date, Will.”

“It’s a date, and I thought we were exclusive.”

“Hang on just a second,” I shot. “Because this isn’t about me going to the ballet; it’s about me going with Greg. I won’t ask you to like him. I won’t even ask you to be around him. But Greg is my friend. He was my friend before I ever met you, and he’ll continue to be my friend. Just as much as I don’t want my seeing you to be a problem for him, I don’t want my friendship with him to be a problem for you. And if it’s a problem for you, then we really do have bigger issues.”

He watched me for a second, the muscle in his tight jaw bouncing.

“So, is it going to be a problem?”

Will let out an audible breath and unlocked his jaw. “No,” he said as he stepped back into me, winding his arms around my waist.

“Good,” I sang sweetly, trying to defuse the tension, my arms taking their previous spot around his neck.

“I just don’t like him.”

“I know.”

“And I don’t want him to interfere.”

“He won’t.”

Will almost smiled. “He’d better not.” He sighed, his anger dissipating. “I’m sorry, Annie. Sometimes when I get mad, get…jealous,” he admitted, “I say things I don’t mean. Will you bear with me?”

My heart softened. “Of course,” I said on a breath.

And then he kissed me.

I was so preoccupied with where my hands were or if he was enjoying the kiss or if I was any good at it; there was really no way I could even stop to enjoy it.

He pulled back with a crooked smile on his face. “Wanna make out?”

A giggle bubbled out of me, and I nodded, feeling like I was in junior high. Except in junior high, I had been too busy reading books and playing piano to kiss boys.

Will scooped me up and carried me to the couch, laying me down. My heart almost stopped when he started climbing on top of me, and I shifted, smiling nervously, putting him on his side with his back to the couch.

And thus began my very first make-out session.

We kissed in the same emotionless way I’d felt on our date, but we persevered until our lips were swollen, and a very alarming, very hard boner was pressed against my hip. I tried to mimic what he did with his lips, tried to match him motion for motion, tried to understand what to do with my tongue, tried not to wonder how humans had figured out that shoving your tongue in someone else’s mouth felt good.

I spent at least two full minutes just puzzling through that particular discovery of mankind, but I couldn’t quite sort it out.

A couple of times, he tried to roll on top of me, but I found ways to keep myself at his side, hoping he would remain content with our scissored legs, hips pressed together. I started sweating a little and spent a few minutes obsessing about whether or not I’d put on deodorant, which I thought might have made me sweat more.

I was in the dead center of that thought—Did I put it on after my shower or when I brushed my teeth?—when his hand roamed from my hip up to my ribs, and his broad palm cupped my breast.

I involuntarily pulled back—not out of surprise that he had done it, but out of shock from the contact. No one had ever touched me like that before.

We separated with a pop of our lips.

“Oh,” I breathed.

His hand didn’t move. Well, it didn’t move away. He buried his face in my neck, his lips against my skin, his thumb brushing the peak of my nipple through the thin fabric of my bra, sending a jolt of heat down my stomach, between my legs.

“Oh!” I gasped and leaned back. “Whoa!” was all I managed before hitting the ground between the coffee table and couch with a thump.

He laughed without mocking me, and I looked up at him, blushing furiously as I wished I would just die already.