Page 72 of Secrets in Love
“Yes.” I sighed. I wasn’t at all. But this was hotter.
“I knew it. Such naughty lace for such a good girl.”
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
“So fucking beautiful. I can’t wait to taste you.”
This is happening. This is it. It’s now or never. I have to tell him.
Then it hit me.
Frigid Evie.
I tried to push the memory away. Tried to relax into Nate’s heavenly, unholy touch and bask in it like I had been just seconds before. But all I could see was Luke Bailey’s face. All I could hear were the taunts and jibes, and all I could feel were the nerves, the fear, the humiliation, and the rejection.
Frigid Evie.
Hot tears began to fall on my cheeks, but Nate was too busy praising, moaning, and devouring me through my underwear, his arm stretching up to cup my breasts—which felt really fucking amazing—to notice my freakout.
Frigid Evie.
It was happening all over again. Before I could stop myself, I pulled my body from his grasp, sending poor Nate face-first into the mattress. I shuffled back against the headboard and held my knees up to my chest. Perhaps he thought it was part of the game as he looked at me with a smile as big as his heart but froze when he saw my face.
“Evie, baby, what’s wrong?”
I closed my eyes, willing a black hole or portal to another dimension, one where I was a sexually confident hoochie, to appear before me, but it didn’t. I was left facing the most beautiful boy I had ever seen, who had just had his face pressed against my hoo-ha.
“Nate, I’m a virgin!” I spat the words at him, screaming as though he didn’t know his head was on fire.
“What?” His expression was everything I’d dreaded for years. Shock, bemusement, horror, pity. “You’re a virgin?” I nodded silently, nervously awaiting the arrival of panic chucks, and braided my hair. “A virgin?” he repeated.
“Yes, Nate. A virgin.”
“A virgin, as in you’ve never had sex before?”
“No, as in I’m a non-alcoholic cocktail.” I dropped my hair, slapped his head, and rolled from the bed. “For fuck’s sake, Nate. Yes, I’m a virgin—as in I’ve never had sex before.”
He sat back on his heels, scratched his belly like I’d asked him what he wanted on his toast, then lazily smiled. “A virgin… I can work with that.”
“You can work with that?” His smile broadened, and I saw red. “What an incredibly arrogant, cavalier, asshole of a thing to say to a half-naked, crying woman who just revealed her most embarrassing secret to a man who is also half-naked with a massive boner she can’t take her eyes off…and don’t you dare laugh at me!”
Completely disregarding my words, he laughed and sprung to his feet. I was in his grip before I could pull away. His hands swept up and down my back before squeezing and settling on my ass cheeks. “I didn’t mean to sound insincere or insensitive. I’m surprised and really, really, happy.”
“Happy?”
“Yup. I’m stoked. I knew we were made for each other, and this just proves it. You’re fucking perfect, and you’re mine. It’s fate, Gidge. I’m going to be the first and only man you—the first and only girl I’ve ever loved—will sleep with.”
I pushed off his chest in disgust-slash-swoonworthy arousal. “You’re pretty cocky, aren’t you?”
He smirked smugly and looked down at his still-bulging pants. “You could say that, yeah.”
Damn it. Don’t look so fucking cute!
My irritation knew no bounds, but so did his adorably playful countenance…and my desire to play. I wanted to be angry, to reject his romanticized claims of fate. But if I was being honest, his words speared my armored heart like a dagger. The idea of having Nate be my one and only felt right. I wasn’t going to tell him that, though, and luckily, I didn’t have to.
“Nate the gwate! Nate the gwate! Nate the gwate!“ Iris banged on his door.
“Bad luck, Stiffy Stifferson.” I chortled, reminding myself to stop staring at his erection. “Looks like fate has other plans. You’re not going to be my first anything.”
