Page 35 of Carter

“I want to butter your bread,

with my pointy butter knife.

Til it’s dripping off your bun,

This salty elixir of life.”

I stilled and groaned in dismay. “Oh, my God, that sucked so badly, Carter.”

He laughed. “I never said it would be good!”

“Even calling it bad is a compliment. You should be very embarrassed of yourself.”

“I’m embarrassed for you for even hearing it.”

“Your salty elixir of life?”

“You know, my come—”

“I know what you meant! Don’t… don’t make my ears bleed. Christ.”

“I’m not. You brought it up.”

I laughed and he looked down at me, his eyes sparkling with life. In this moment, he was beyond happy. His smile was large, brightening his face, adding dimples in his cheeks. It was a rarity seeing him like this. I never wanted to forget it.

“Tell me how I can redeem myself then,” he told me, his hand still settled between my legs. I glimpsed down his neck and to his protruding trapezoids. The muscles looked strained along his shoulders, and his large biceps had this sexy ass vein sticking out that, for some weird reason, made it sexier to look at.

“Someone as sexy as you doesn’t need to redeem himself with music,” I told him. “You could sing about tampons, and it’d be the best song in the freaking world.”

When he opened his mouth, I immediately clamped it shut with my hand. “And please,” I added sternly, “donotsing about tampons.”

His body shook with laughter again. He kissed my hand away and motioned down my body. “I want to redeem myself by sucking your pussy ‘til it’s exploding in my mouth. How about that?”

My heart stopped, wentwhat-the-fuckin my ribcage, and kick-started again. “How about you give me more than your mouth?”

He paused, his eyes boring into mine, realizing exactly what I meant. If ever there were words enough to destroy a fun situation, they were those ones apparently.

“I’m not sure we should go so far,” he whispered to me, pinching his brows together.

“Why? We’ve done everything but.”

“That’s a huge step.”

“For who exactly?”

He just blinked at me, his mouth firmly shut.

“Talk to me, Carter,” I pressed gently, looking deeply at him. “Help me understand.”

“I already told you,” he returned solemnly, “I’m a fuck-up, and I’ll find a way to fuck this up. I can’t stand the thought of not having you in my life. I don’t want to ruin you, or us. I like what we are as it is. Sex… would complicate things.”

“But everything else we’ve done hasn’t?”

He sighed, looking about my face thoughtfully. “It’s not all that personal. Sex would be.”

Now I was really struggling to understand. “You’ve had sex with girls before. You told me many times it was never personal.”

“Yeah,” he agreed carefully, stalling a moment before adding, “but sex… withyouwould be.”

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