Page 77 of Best Friends, Tennessee

A certain power over him. A power I wanted to respect and care for, because I knew exactly how vulnerable he was in this moment.

“I’m going to take it slow,” I murmured against his lips. I still hadn’t touched his cock, and I felt it throb against me, pressed between my stomach and his, rutting between us and capitalizing on the friction. He started to gently buck his hips as if he was being tortured.

“How slow are we talkin’?” he asked, his voice a little ragged.

“Enough to make you want it.”

“Trust me. I want it,” he told me, moving his hips so that he was shoving downward a little against my finger, like he was already pleading for me to push it inside him.

“You’re something else, Finn,” I said.

I pulled up a little, looking down at his eyes for a moment. He had a smoldering look, like the nervous feeling had now given way to a hypnotized lust.

I knew those eyes so well. For a moment I stopped there, just letting myself watch him, weighing how much had changed. For so long, those eyes had meant only one thing to me: friendship.

Friendship like I’d never had with anyone else.

And then, as we got older, everything had deepened, become more complex. Those eyes made me feel about a thousand emotions at once, not all of them purely calm.

Now, being this close to him, looking into his eyes felt simple again, even with all of the things that were different.

I was letting myself show him how much I cared.

No matter how terrifying that was.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Finn said, and I almost laughed as he broke me from my thoughts, bringing me back to the present.

“I’m supposed to be the one who has to say that,” I murmured. “Not you.”

“Why, because I’ve never gotten fucked before?”

“I mean, yes,” I said.

He smiled up at me. “But I know you don’t like… attachments.”

“I think you and I are attached for life,” I said. “No matter what we do ordon’tdo with each other.”

The lustful look returned to his eye as his gaze danced from my chest to my lips and then back to my eyes. “And that’s why you should quit hesitating and get inside me.”

I hummed. “Oh, I’m not hesitating,” I told him, reaching over to the nightstand for the bottle of lube. “Just—”

“Taking it slow,” he said.

“But I think you can take it.”

I loved the look on his face—his pupils blown wide, his skin already flushed despite the fact that we’d barely done anything yet.

I snapped open the bottle of lube and slicked my fingers, reaching back down.

“You look so fucking good,” Finn said. I knew how much those simple words meant. Nothing was off the table now. There was no question ofifwe both wanted this. Finn had enoughprecum at the tip of his cock for me to know damn well how he felt.

I got to be the one to show Finn how good this could feel, if I did it right. He was opening himself up to new things for the first time, and I was going to make damn sure I made it good.

I could come just from looking at him like this.

“You want it?” I said, letting my slicked finger trace over his hole.

“Fuck yes.”

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