Page 109 of Reaching Avery
It was senses overload, and yet, I still wanted more.
When he started grinding his body against me, I gasped, breaking our kiss. Mav took that opening to start kissing my jaw and down my neck. I gripped his strong shoulders—dug my nails into him a little—and tilted my head back against the wall.
Maverick sucked at the base of my throat as he rolled his hips into me and held my sides. I was so close to losing it.
I’d never experienced something so… magnetic. All-consuming. I was both nervous and enthralled.
With each push of his hips into mine, I whimpered. I felt like I was intoxicated, even though I didn’t drink at all. My head was spinning, and I clawed his strong back.
However, the moment was wrecked when he moved his hand across my upper thigh.
I pushed him away with such force that he stumbled back and almost fell.
“I’m sorry!” I said before covering my mouth with my hands.
I was always apologizing to him.
“It’s okay,” he said, out of breath. He focused on me, but he didn’t come closer. “What did I do wrong? I thought you liked it.”
“I did.” I balled my fists at my sides as an urge trickled through me. The hurt in his expression was a look I hated seeing—and one I caused a lot. “I want to tell you.”
Slowly, he approached and took my hand. “Then tell me.”
Staring at him in that moment, fear once again won. If I pulled down my pants right there and showed him my legs, he would never look at me the same way again. He would only see the scars. The broken boy marked by them.
He wouldn’t seemeanymore.
“I promise I will tell you,” I said, moving forward and wrapping my arms around his waist. I laid my head over his heart. “But not tonight. I want to enjoy this as long as I can.”
Hesitantly, his arms came around me too. He pressed a kiss into my hair, and it triggered that fluttering in my stomach.
“You know I never want you to do something you’re not okay with, right?” he asked as his arms tightened around me. “I’m sorry if I scared you earlier. I just… and it’s no excuse and I don’t mean it as one… but Ireallywant you, Avery. Sometimes I get carried away and I—”
“Hey, big guy,” I interjected, looking up and placing my fingertip to his lips. His mouth stretched with a smile. “Believe me when I say it’snothingyou did. I want you too. Yeah, I’ve never done it before, but I want you to be my first, Mav.” My body came alive at the thought, and I took a deep breath to calm down. It didn’t help that my heart was still in overdrive from all the grinding and making out. “It’s just—”
“Complicated?” he guessed. He hadn’t said it in a condescending way, though. “Good thing I don’t like things too easy. And you, Avery Kinkead, are the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced.”
“And that’s good?” I asked, grasping right then that I’d be pretty freaking devastated if he said no.
His answering smile told me all I needed to know. The red paint going down the left side of his face was smeared a little, and I suspected it was from our kissing. And that probably meant it was on me somewhere now too.
We left the stall and went back out to the party.
Noah and Bastian were slow dancing, resting their heads together as they moved lazily side to side. By Noah’s goofy grin, I was ninety-nine percent sure Jace had succeeded in getting him drunk. Bas smiled too, but it was sweeter. When Noah laid his head on Bastian’s shoulder, Bas began brushing his fingers through Noah’s blue strands, and the action was loving and tender.
I yawned so big that my jaw popped.
“Ah, is the Prince of Darkness getting sleepy?” Maverick asked with a smartass tone, stroking my cheek with his thumb.
“Um, do you see the costume?” I motioned to myself. “I am Loki, the trickster god, right now. Get it right.”
Just like that, things were back to normal. It told me a lot about Mav’s character. He forgave easily and didn’t dwell on things. I wish I could’ve been more like him. I dwelled on things until I made myself sick most of the time.
After two more dances, and a random conversation with a group of college kids about something they did on their campus called Human v. Zombies, Maverick and I said bye to everyone and left.
In the car, I held his hand and laid my head on his shoulder. Yeah, the seatbelt cutting into my side as I leaned over to him was annoying as hell, but the bubbly feeling I got from being so close to Mav made me forget about it after a while.
When we got to my house—way past curfew—I didn’t move from the seat. Instead, I grabbed his nape before pulling him to me. We’d kissed so much that night, but it didn’t seem like enough.
Just one more kiss.
One more turned into two more. Then three.
After I finally pulled away from him and told him goodnight, I went inside and leaned against the door, watching the headlights of his car move across the wall until they disappeared altogether.
Apart from the one tense moment, it had been the best night of my life. It was what I needed to really bring home the fact that one; I’d been a freaking idiot to try to break up with Mav a few days before. And two; that I maybe, kind of, felt more for him than I thought.
If not love, then perhaps something close to it.
A maybe love.
