We Told Six Lies(50)

When the door to your room opened, I straightened like a soldier. I was ready for you. Ready for anything you’d have me do.

You raised a long, slender finger and curled it toward yourself.

I’d never moved quicker in my entire life.

I entered your room in time to see you glide toward your bed, wearing a white nightgown that drove me to madness. When you turned, the smile on your face was shy, and I couldn’t tell whether you put it there for my sake or if it was sincere.

You stopped in front of your mattress and said, “Come here.” There was urgency in the way you spoke, in the way you moved as if you were afraid you’d back out of what you had in mind.

I was there before you could take another breath.

You wrapped your arms around my neck and pulled my mouth to yours with little warning. I kissed you, and my nerves melted away. I found my courage in the way you shook between my hands. In the uncertain glint in your eye.

You’d never done this before, I realized.

I would be your first.

I was afraid of how I would feel after this. Like you were mine. Like I had made you mine. That was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

But you felt so right.

You threaded your fingers through my hair, and I gripped your back tighter. Pulled you against me. Our bodies pressed together, filling each other’s slopes and valleys. We didn’t stay like that for long before you broke away from me.

You laid yourself on the bed like an offering. One I was supposed to unwrap and devour. I climbed on top of you, and you reached for my jeans. I had those words on my lips again, but I wouldn’t speak them. I knew I shouldn’t. Instead, I stood up and slipped out of my jeans, pulled off my shirt, and stared at you. Your hair fanned over the bed, so white it lit my heart on fire and sent those flames crawling across my skin.

You pulled up your nightgown, and I watched as, inch by inch, you exposed your knees, your thighs, your hips. I hooked my arms beneath yours and moved you farther up on the bed, then I climbed after you. You seemed so fragile beneath me. My body swallowed yours, and you disappeared under the armor I’d worked so hard to accumulate. Is that what you wanted? To disappear?

You weren’t as fragile as you seemed that night.

I knew perfectly well that I was lying in bed with a viper.

I kissed you anyway. And I lifted that nightgown over your head and trailed my lips down the delicate skin on your neck. Then I took your tightened nipple into my mouth and nearly lost my mind to the moment. Felt myself pushing against you with impatience.

But you were the impatient one. Tugging on my boxers with anxious fingers. Digging your nails into my back. Wrapping your legs around my waist and inviting the thrust of my hips.

Once this was over, we wouldn’t be the same. We would be bound. I wanted that so badly that every part of me ached. But that was the problem. You made dormant pieces of me spark to life, and it wasn’t enough to connect our bodies.

I wanted to hear you say it.

I knew you felt it.

I reached down and slipped your underwear off, holding your ankle in my hand, and I guided one leg and then the other upward and then down. You watched me, and I could feel some part of you pushing its way out, its desperate arms stretched toward me. Time and again, you towed that part of yourself back inside. Gave me a false smile.

“I know you’re scared,” I said, breaking our vow of silence.

You shook your head, and that false smile widened. “I’m not.”

“You’re putting your body into this, but not your head. Why?”

You grabbed my face and stared intently into my eyes, but that only made it worse. I could see the lie so plainly. “I’m here.”

“You’re falling in love with me,” I said, taking my boxers off. Keeping you beneath me. Hanging on to the hope that you’d admit what I needed to hear.

You closed your eyes and released a small gasp when you felt me, unclothed, uninhibited, pressing between your legs. We were so close, so close, and yet that unsaid thing hung between us.

I kissed the bottom lip of your open mouth, and then kissed your eyes, too. They opened beneath my touch.

I found your stare and said, “Listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” you whispered.

“I love you.”

You smiled, but you were only placating me.

“I love the girl you hide inside. The one you’re so afraid to show the world. Afraid because it would make you vulnerable.” I pressed closer to you. Not enough. Not nearly enough. “I love the girl you show the world, too. The manipulation and the kindness. Your hard edges and your soft ones.

“I don’t know if someone made you this way, or if you did this on your own.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I love you. I love your fucked-up pieces. Every last one of them.”

I reached down and gathered myself. Put it against you and gave another small thrust. Almost there this time. Almost.

“Tell me, Molly,” I said against your neck. “Tell me what I want to hear.”

When you didn’t respond, I lifted my head and searched your face.

“Be vulnerable. Just once.”

Your bottom lip trembled. It belied the confidence in your gaze.

You pulled me tighter, opened your legs wider, and said, “I am.”

But that’s not what I meant, and you knew it. I wanted your body, but I wanted your mind, too. I wanted to strap on a headlight and explore every last part of you—the crevices in your brain and the lines of your body.