Page 32 of Road Trip

“Okay.” The word left his mouth on a breath and touched mine. “So.”

I blinked at him.

“So we’re gonna get cricks in our necks,” he said, and yeah, I could see that. He stood up and then climbed onto the bed, sitting there cross-legged. The mattress bounced a little as he settled. “Come here.”

“I’m wearing a towel,” I said like an idiot.

Jacob’s brow creased. “So put some pants on or put a pillow in your lap. I’m not gonna look if you don’t want me to.” Did that mean he’d look if Ididwant him to? “I already saw it anyway.”

That didn’t make things any clearer, and if I was going to spend all my time second-guessing everything Jacob said, we’d never get anywhere. So I squared my shoulders and said, “You can look if you want.”

Jacob’s cheeks flushed pink. “I—yeah.”

Wow. Using your words really did work. Who knew?

I climbed up onto the bed and sat mirroring him, my knees almost touching his. The towel gaped and Jacob’s gaze dropped, but apart from showing some thigh, I was still decent. I didn’t know whether I was relieved by that or not. Like, I’d pretty much dared us to take this further, and I would have gone with it, but also? I hadn’t even figured out kissing yet. I probably wasn’t ready for anything else. So Horny Matt was disappointed butRealistic Matt was relieved. That guy was no fun, but he probably had my back.

It was Realistic Matt who said, “So I really wanna kiss you some more, but is that all we’re doing?”

Jacob’s gaze lingered on the gap in my towel and his throat bobbed. “I, uh. We could start with kissing and see what happens? And we can stop if one of us says so?”

I gave a jerky nod, and then, because Jacob looked about as serious as a heart attack, I said, “Gimme some of that good lip action,” and puckered up like a cartoon character.

For a moment he froze and then, just when I was worried he thought that was seriously my kissing face, he threw back his head and laughed. Then he leaned forward and kissed me again, only this wasn’t a careful, chaste peck. This was packed with intent, his lips soft as they pressed against mine, and holy shit, he was good at this.

I found myself wrapping a hand around the back of his neck to hold him in place.Forever, my stupid brain thought. But since that was impossible, then for now at least. The pressure of his lips against mine was firm but gentle, and when he pushed his tongue against the seam of my mouth, I opened. Bubbles swelled and burst in my bloodstream when our tongues touched, and my skin prickled and felt suddenly two sizes too small. I shivered as Jacob put his hand against my cheek and I leaned into his touch. His thumb stroked my cheekbone, and everything about this moment just felt right, the way that maybe nothing ever really had before in my entire life. My eyes got hot, and I squeezed them shut.

Jacob drew back enough to end the kiss, but his hand was still cupping my cheek and his breath ghosted against my jaw. “Matty?”

I opened my eyes. “Yeah?”

His expression was serious again, both anxious and soft. “Was that okay?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

The corner of his mouth quirked in what was almost a cocky smile, and then he kissed me again.

The second time? Even better. I didn’t understand how something that could steal my breath could make me feel so alive at the same time.

“This was a better idea than laundry,” I said when we broke for air.

“Fuck the laundry,” he said and leaned in and kissed me, slow and deep. I was aware of Jacob’s bare skin against mine and I ran a hand down his back, greedy for more of him. He shivered under my touch, and when my hand met the waistband of his sleep pants and my palm rested against the small of his back, his breathing hitched.

Yeah, fuck the laundry.

I dropped my free hand to my thigh, pressing down on the edge of the towel to keep it in place because I was getting hard and, despite what we’d said before we started kissing, I didn’t really want to deal with any Whac-A-Mole action right now. Or at least I didn’t want Jacob watching me while I did. And I didn’t want him to think he had to watch me. I dunno. Baby steps or something.

Jacob went still and then he said, “Did you want to stop?”

“No!” I looked down at my lap and so did he. I only had a second to feel totally mortified before I saw that he was hard as well, and his thin sleep pants were doing even less to contain him than my towel was me. “Holy shit.”

He was wide-eyed and red-faced. “Yeah.”

I’d done that.

Screw baby steps.

I’d come into this worried because I didn’t know what I was doing and because Jacob was more experienced, but none of that really mattered. Not when we were both on the exact same page here. And who cared how far he’d gone with girls? We were both virgins when it came to dicks, right? “Do you wanna get naked?”

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