I nod and slide my hand around the top of her thigh, tracing the line of those shorts, which really means that I’m tracing the crease of her inner thigh. Her legs part ever so slightly, and my heart thrills at the way she responds to me.

She hesitates for no more than second. Then she starts to talk. “I was angry,” she says. “Chase was an ass all night long, and then he touched me and I actually thought about walking away from him, but he was so damn smug. It wasn’t completely a knee-jerk reaction when I hit him. It was me being pissed off and hitting him just because I could. Just because he deserved it. Then I stole his car and came home, and he showed up. But then you were there. I knew you were there in the bushes. And I knew you’d seen me come home with my clothes all messed up, and I was afraid you’d think the worst.”

“The worst?” I ask. Her legs part a little farther, and her mouth opens on a heavy sigh as I trace her inner thigh. I want to pull her shorts off and drag her panties down her legs. Then I want to touch my mouth to all of her wet girly parts and lick her until she comes on my face. But her parents are downstairs.

“You were afraid I’d kissed him?” she asks.

I don’t respond because I’m too busy sliding my fingers beneath her shorts to trace the line of her panties. “Uh huh,” I mutter.

“I thought about it,” she says. “I kind of wanted to get it over and done with.”

I look up. Did she really just say that? “Over and done with?” I ask.

She winces. “You make me feel these…feelings, Pete. And I don’t know what to do with them all or where they came from. And that scares the crap out of me, that I can be like this with you without even having to calm myself down or work to push my feelings into the corner of my mind. So, I kind of wanted to test it with Chase. But when he touched me, I didn’t feel anything.”

“Did he scare you?”

She shakes her head. “Not really. He was an ass. And I knew it before I went out with him. But then he grazed my boob, and my skin began to crawl. It wasn’t like when you touch me at all. So it made me think. It made me want to come back here to you. But I figured I should probably finish out the night. But then he touched my boob again and laughed about it, and I hit him. It wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction. I meant to hit him.” She winces again. “I feel kind of bad about that.”

I just realized I stopped tracing her panties when she started to talk about this, and I look into her eyes. “So you didn’t freak out. You hit him on purpose?” She has no idea how f**king happy this makes me.

“Yeah,” she admits. But she’s not smiling. She’s laboring over this a little. “But then you came into the barn and asked me if I kissed him. I couldn’t lie to you.” She turns my face to hers and looks into my eyes. “You’re the only one I want to kiss, Pete. You’re the only one I want to be with. You’re the only one I want to hold me and touch me.” She waves a hand in front of her face like a fan. “God, it’s getting hot in here,” she says.

I pick Reagan up again, and her eyes go wide when I lay her down on the futon. I part her knees ever so slowly and run my hands up the inside of her thighs, one on each side, spreading her open so that I can lie down on top of her.

When I settle into the warmth of her, I realize she’s trembling again. “This okay?” I ask as I brace myself on my elbows, my head just below her chin.

“Yeah,” she breathes. She wraps her arms around my neck and pulls me down to her chest, where I lay my head on her boobs. I turn my face and nuzzle into her and realize the crest of her breast has to be directly beside my mouth. Her hands sift through the short hair on my head, her fingertips playful and light. “So, last night,” she says. She waits. I lift my head so I can look into her face. She has her lower lip caught tightly between her teeth, and then she rushes to say on an exhale, “I really liked what we did last night.”

I chuckle. “I could tell.” God, I feel so light and so heavy at the same time. I rock my hips against her and her bottom lifts, pushing her soft, warm, probably pink and pretty parts toward my dick. Shit. “I did, too.”

She tugs my hair until I look into her face again. “Is this too fast?” she whispers.

I look down toward where my dick is only separated from her warmth by my jeans and those tiny little things she calls shorts. “I still have my pants on. I promise.”

She groans. “I’m not talking about that.” She gestures from me to her and back. “Me and you. Is this going too fast?” she asks.

My breath hitches. “I don’t know,” I say. “Is it too fast for you?”

She shakes her head. “We just met a few days ago.” Like she has to remind me.

Then why does it feel like my heart has been waiting for her forever? “Mmm hmm,” I hum, as I scooch myself up a little so my lips can touch hers. She kisses me back, her mouth soft and insistent against mine. I pull back, and she grins. “What?” I ask, her smile contagious as I feel my own tug at the corners of my lips.

“That kiss wasn’t quite as epic as the last one,” she says.

I take her lips again, soft and slow, my tongue sliding into her mouth, my heart rejoicing when hers rasps against mine, all velvet and heat. “We’ll have to work on that,” I reply when I finally lift my head.

She nods. Her mouth is close to my ear when she says, “I want it to be as epic for you as it was for me.” A shiver runs up my spine, and I rock my hips, pushing against her heat. I can’t help myself. Shit. “Would you let me do that for you?” she asks.