Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (i am malala young readers edition .TXT) 📗

seems counterproductive, but I think he’s signaling that he is paying attention. “Tell me how it starts.”

“It starts with us standing in the sunroom that was going to be a conservatory but is now a café. You’ve just done an amazingly romantic thing with some clouds and it’s got me feeling all swoony.”

“Oooh, I like this so far.”

“You pick me up.”

He obliges with zeal, scooping me to his chest like a knight rescuing his princess. I think about where we are, where we could go next.

“You carry me out of the room.”

So he does.

“And we go . . .” My bedroom is too far. I’m in practical mode, hunting for the nearest soft landing pad. “Into the living room.”

So we do.

He lets his forehead fall to mine. “And then?”

“You notice a plaid couch,” I say, “that looks big enough for two people even if one of them is the size of Thor.”

He laughs. “All right. I’m noticing it.”

“And you say, ‘My, it’s been such a long day. I think I have to lie down immediately in this room where there is only one couch to lie on.’”

Wesley tries to keep a straight face. “My, it’s been such a long day. I think I have to lie down immediately in this room where there is only one couch to lie on.”

I grin. “You lay me onto the couch first, delicately, and admire me for two full minutes. You’ve never seen such beauty.”

He sets me down. A flash of lightning slants across his chest like a jagged blade and the emotion in his eyes steals my air. “I haven’t,” he murmurs.

“Two minutes is a long time,” I amend. “You admire me for a few seconds, then turn in a slow circle.”

Raising a brow, he complies.

“You tear your shirt up over your head.” Wesley snorts, but my expression is stern. “And you do it ferociously, with animal magnetism.”

He gamely peels his shirt off, tossing it aside.

My attention takes a leisurely stroll across all the bare skin he has on display. It’s decadent. “You flex your arms.”

He gives me a dry look.

“You have to,” I insist. “That’s how the fantasy goes.”

He flexes, and I fall back snickering. Wesley sighs melodramatically.

I want to see how much I can get away with. “You say, ‘Is it hot in here or is it just me?’”

He makes a face. Grumbles. “Is it hot in here? Orisitjustme.”

“It’s you,” I assure him, enjoying myself. “Then you—”

“Start to get impatient,” Wesley finishes darkly.

“No, you do not. You start doing a striptease.”

His eyes flash. “Or, I walk over to you.”

“Or, you shuck your pants and helicopter them over your head.”

Wesley leans over me, fisted hands pressing into the couch. His voice drops low, scraping my skin. “I kiss you.”

I loop my arms around his neck, only too happy to give in. “Yes. That’s exactly what you do.”

So he does. Softly, softly. Again and again.

I’m starting to feel warm, a bit delirious, and lean back slightly. “Just real quick.”

“Yeah?” He withdraws.

“Not to be down on myself or anything, but this is your first time. And, uh, I don’t know what you’ve been imagining, but . . .” I scramble for phrasing that won’t kill the mood. “I’m not a Victoria’s Secret model. You might have idealized what the woman in this experience would be like. I’ve done this, but not a lot. Also, I just ate, so I’m going to be a little bloated—”

“You’re beautiful. I’m going to love whatever’s under here,” he says, sliding a hand up my torso. A bolt of heat zings through me.

“Okay, but—”

“Maybell.” He stops me with two fingers pressed to my lips. “Don’t be giving me disclaimers, you don’t deserve that. I’m going. To love it.”

I let go.

The kisses change tempo, get deeper, needier, and there are long fingers gliding up my wrist, palms, lacing through mine. He settles over me, asks, Is it okay if I touch you, and I say, Yes. I’m giving him tremendous power over me by wanting him the way that I do, so much that it sticks in my throat, making it difficult to breathe. He’s giving tremendous power to me by trusting me enough to be intimate like this.

“What happens next?” I ask.

Wesley reaches behind me and bunches up a fistful of my dress, tugging it to mold tightly against my curves in the front. “I think you know what happens next.” His mouth slants over mine, the pressure of his kiss desperate, before he draws away to drink me in, eyes tracking down my body.

“What if we . . . ?” He exhales raggedly, playing with the zipper up my back.

“Yes.”

“And then we . . . ?”

“Yes.”

He fishes into the back pocket of his trousers and withdraws a foil square. “I bought these a couple days ago, just in case. I didn’t want to assume anything. But I kind of hoped.”

I press two fingers to his lips. “I’m glad you did.”

Wesley smiles against my fingers, relieved.

He unzips me, then I have to do a bit of wiggling before the dress is a puddle of fabric on the floor. My temperature is so high that the air is an icy bite. I would have thought I’d feel terribly vulnerable on display like this, but his gaze traverses my body with such longing, with such naked, blazing lust, and I feel like the most gorgeous creature that ever walked the earth.

Wesley drags his fingers over his face, eyes large.

“Fuck,” he utters weakly.

It is a heady, gratifying thing, to watch this man unravel.

He explores with his hands, glancing at my expression every so often to make sure I haven’t changed my mind, that I’m enjoying it. “I can’t get over how soft you feel.” He plants a kiss on my stomach, traveling up between my breasts, each touch reverent. He takes it in turns to be sweet, dirty, sweet, dirty, switching on me without warning. The sensations he’s . . .

My mind empties of words.

His tongue. His hands. I’m. It’s. Oh. I have to bite down.

When my hands explore him, too, he hisses through his teeth and pulls back