I’m not sure I even want to.

I kiss her, and I swear my heart is in my throat the whole time. If the world felt big standing on that state championship field in high school, it feels unending now. Every time her mouth opens against mine, there are whole new galaxies, complete universes of thought and feeling pushing their way into my head.

And I was so wrong. Dylan isn’t my next big exit. She isn’t a way out of all the f**ked-up stuff in my head and my past.

She’s an entrance. She’s the way into something bigger and better than I could ever have imagined, and for once in my life, I don’t have anything to say. No dirty words to tease her or push her. I don’t need to tell her what I want or ask her to do the same because it’s so good just being inside her that I can’t even think of anything else.

There’s nothing I want more than exactly what I have.

When I pull out and push back inside, her h*ps rock up to meet me. Her hair is fanned out around her on the bed, and her head tips back, her eyes closed. I repeat the motion, making sure to grind against her so that she feels just as good as I do.

I lose track of time in her. Somewhere along the way, we move under the covers, and she straddles me, rocking against me with her hair swinging like I always wanted. She comes apart hovering above me, and if possible it’s even more gorgeous than the first time I saw her do that.

I flip her under me again and sit back on my heels. I lift her h*ps up onto the slant of my thighs, and I watch myself entering her. I watch the way her body takes me, and the way she tenses and writhes each time I slide out. I press a thumb to her clit, and she’s so sensitive from her last orgasm that she cries out and jerks against me.

I go slow, gliding my hands lightly over her body, waiting for her to be ready again, and I know she is when she digs her heels into my ass.

I slam into her then, hard and greedy. She stretches her arms above her head, and I follow, lacing our fingers together and pushing her hands down into the mattress.

I’m finally starting to adjust to the way my mind has rearranged itself around her, and now it seems so obvious. This was always going to happen. It’s impossible not to fall for a girl like her. I’m not sure I even know what love is. It’s certainly not a word I have much experience saying, let alone feeling, but I refuse to believe anything could be bigger than this, than the way I feel about her.

“Never,” I tell her. “I’ll never get tired of this. I need you to come for me again, baby. I need to feel you squeeze tight around me. And I need your eyes on mine.”

That’s the first time I’ve ever told a girl what I needed instead of what I wanted. It might be the first time that distinction has ever been important.

But I do need to know that the crazy things happening in my head and heart aren’t all on me. I dip my head and close my lips over a rosy peak, and she arches, her stomach pressed up against mine. I’m going to spend a whole day devoted to her br**sts. I want to spend days with every part of her.

I pick up the pace, and every time I push deep, she makes this tiny little sound, her lips curved into a circle. Her nails bite down into the back of my hand, her back arches, and she clenches around me. I lay my forehead against hers, and her breath pants out over my lips as her muscles contract again. Pleasure so strong it’s almost painful tears down my spine, and my vision blurs as I come.

Time seems to stop, and the feeling stretches on for so long that I think I’m dreaming. That it can’t possibly be real, and then her hands are on my face, pulling me down to her lips.

I spend half the night trying to lose and find myself in her all at the same time, and she keeps up with me, matches me kiss for kiss, touch for touch, and I begin to hope.

For the first time in my life, I’m thinking about what comes next, not what’s hot on my heels.

Chapter 21

Silas

I wake to a pounding on my door, and I barely have time to pull a sheet up over Dylan’s na**d back before Torres pokes his head through the door.

“Dude, you’re gonna be—whoa. Sorry, man.”

Dylan wakes up and starts to roll over.

“Get the f**k out, Torres.”

He closes the door with a quick snap and then says through the wood, “I was just gonna say that you’ll be late for practice if you don’t get a move on. Zay and I are leaving.”

I look at my alarm clock and curse. I completely forgot to set it last night.

“You’re late?” Dylan asks sleepily.

“Gonna be if I don’t hurry.”

Even so, I lean over and kiss her before I climb out of bed. She rolls over on her side to face me as I pull on a pair of compression shorts. She looks so damn good in my bed, that sheet doing nothing to hide her curves. I’m tempted to say screw practice and stay home with her.

“I’m sorry that I have to leave so fast.”

She yawns and holds up one finger. “I’ll owe you for that apology.”

I don’t realize how nervous I’d been about whether or not this would keep going, until she says those words.

“In that case, I’m very, very sorry. More sorry than I’ve ever been.”

She laughs and ticks off two more fingers before burying her face in my pillow and stretching out her legs.

I finish pulling on the rest of my clothes, keeping an eye on the clock. I grab the last of my things and bend over to trail a hand over her cheek. She blinks up at me, and I’m fairly certain she fell asleep again in the minute since we spoke.

“Stay as long as you want,” I tell her. “No one will be here to bother you.”

“Is this the part where you tell me you’ll call me? And I worry about whether or not you’re telling the truth?”

“Stay here until I get home, and I won’t have to call you. If you still want to be naked, I won’t even complain.”

“You’re going to be late.”

I kiss her again, curling a hand around her backside for a quick stroke.

“Worth it.”

She laughs. “Go.”

“If get laid out today because I’m too busy daydreaming about your mouth, I’ll expect you to nurse me back to health again.”

“Go, or I’m going to lay you out.”

“Sounds fun, but let’s save that for tonight.”

I can still hear her laughing as I jog down the stairs. I don’t even realize I’ve got my athletic shorts on backward until I’m in my truck and pulling out of the driveway.