So I had Trisha all to myself. All night. I was saving every penny I had to get us an apartment the moment I turned eighteen. But I wanted to do something special for Trisha tonight. I had let her take it slow. I hadn’t said shit that I wanted to because I was afraid she’d freak out.

Last week I had worked nights for the first time, stocking at the local grocery store. With that money I was getting us a hotel room in the next town over. I wanted to hold Trisha all night in a bed. Because I was saving my money, this was all I could afford. I wouldn’t be able to take her out to eat too. So I’d made us sandwiches and bought some of the chocolate chip cookies she loved. I also bought her favorite soda and got a bag of chips and dip.

I had checked in earlier and set the cooler in the room with the sandwiches and dip. Dewayne had snagged me some candles from his house that his mother wouldn’t miss. After setting them around the room, I had left a lighter by the bed so I could light them later.

The reason I hadn’t told Trisha what we were doing was because I wanted to surprise her with a night somewhere she didn’t have to worry about Krit or Fandora coming home. I wanted to hold her while she slept and know she was safe in my arms. What I hadn’t thought about was how Trisha would read into this. Until I parked the truck and glanced over at her.

The wide-eyed look on her as she stared up at the hotel in front of us told me I had made a serious mistake. She didn’t get why I had done this. She was thinking something completely different. We hadn’t done anything more than kiss. I’d wanted to do more, but I was afraid to with her. I didn’t want to lose her or scare her. I’d been a f**king saint with her.

Then I go and do something like this.

Dammit.

“Trisha, babe, this isn’t what you think. I didn’t bring you here . . . for that. I just wanted us to have a night we could sleep with no fear or worry. I wanted to hold you. Nothing more. I swear, baby.”

She didn’t look at me. She continued to stare at the building in front of us. Shit!

“I swear to God I would never have brought you here expecting anything. I wasn’t thinking about that. I just wanted us to have a place that was ours. Where we didn’t have to worry about anyone else coming along or coming home. Just us.”

She nodded slightly, but she didn’t look at me yet. So I waited. I gave her a moment to process what I was saying to her. I was about to tell her I’d sleep on the floor, although I really wanted to hold her all night, when she finally turned her head and met my gaze.

“Okay,” she whispered.

She didn’t look like she meant it.

I reached over and pulled her up against me. “Listen to me,” I pleaded, taking her face in my hands and tilting it so she had to look at me. “If all we ever do is kiss, then I’ll be the luckiest f**king man on the planet. Because I have you. I . . . I love you, Trisha Corbin. I love you like crazy. You’ve got me so obsessed with you I can’t see anything or anyone beyond you. Every plan I make is because of you. Every morning when I wake up all I think about is seeing you. Every night when I go to sleep all I think about is how much I want to be holding you in my arms as you fall asleep. You are it. You’re my gift. You. Just you. This hotel room was to give us a place that was just ours. I have something to eat up there and I even rented us a couple movies. This isn’t about sex, baby. I swear to you.”

She blinked slowly, and her eyes misted over. I wasn’t sure what I had said to make her cry. I started to replay my ramblings in my head, and then her full lips moved. “You love me?”

I had been scared to say it before tonight. It had come out in my panic to reassure her. But it was true. I’d never love anyone else the way I loved Trisha.

“I think you may be the only person who doesn’t know that already,” I said, smiling at her surprise. She was so damn adorable sometimes.

A slow smile played on her lips before she leaned toward me. “I love you, too,” she said softly, before kissing me.

I could’ve died right then and known I had lived.

Trisha

Rock opened the door to the hotel room he had gotten us for the night. My heart was still so full from hearing him tell me he loved me that I couldn’t stop smiling. I had been in love with Rock for months now. I wouldn’t tell him because I wasn’t sure he had wanted to hear that.

He had said it to me. And he had also said a lot of other beautiful things that had made me love him even more, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.

“Cooler has our food in it. You hungry now?” he asked as I stepped inside the room. There was one big bed in the middle of the room and a television on the wall across from it. I could see the sink and mirror straight ahead, and then a door to the bathroom. It was the nicest place I’d ever stayed. Until last month when I went to the party at Marcus Hardy’s house, it would have been the nicest place I had ever been. But Marcus Hardy’s house had blown my mind. It was like nothing I had ever imagined.

This, however, was ours. For the night.

“I got you a grape soda. Several, actually,” Rock said, slipping his hand around my waist and kissing my temple.

I loved grape soda, and once he had found that out, he made sure I had it often. Another thing I loved about him.

Normally, I would want a grape soda. But I didn’t want that right now. I had been daydreaming for so long about the moment I would tell Rock I loved him. I had known how I wanted it to happen. I had fantasized about it so many times I wasn’t even nervous when I turned to face him. I couldn’t say the words because in my daydreams he just knew. I had never prepared words for this.

I kissed him.

It only took him a moment to respond. His hands were on my hips, pulling me up against him tightly as his mouth began to work its magic on me. His minty taste always excited me. I slipped my arms up as high as I could and stood on my tiptoes so that my fingers could slide into his short hair. My br**sts pressed against his chest, and the ache in them only intensified. Since the first time Rock’s hands had settled under my br**sts and his thumb had grazed the undersides of them, they had started getting very excited when he got anywhere near them.

Not begging him to touch them was hard. It scared me and excited me to think about it. I had seen him looking at my boobs a lot. He liked them. It made wearing shirts that were too small bearable, knowing he liked the view.

When his hands slid up my sides and stopped just below my br**sts again, I let out a frustrated whimper. He stopped kissing me for a moment, but his mouth stayed hovering over mine. His warm breath bathed my lips, and I wasn’t sure I could breathe.

His hands slowly began to move, and I opened my eyes to look up at his warm ones. He was watching me closely as he inched his hands up until he was touching the undersides of my br**sts. So close to the centers, which ached for attention.

The moment he moved higher and his fingers ran over my sensitive ni**les, I sucked in a breath and grabbed on to his shoulders. This was what I wanted. What I had wanted for a while.

“Can I take your shirt off?” Rock asked, his voice raspy and low.

I nodded. I couldn’t form words.

He closed his eyes for a minute, and his nostrils flared before he reached down and pulled my T-shirt up my body. I lifted my arms, and he moved the shirt up and then tossed it aside. I wanted to close my eyes now. But I also needed to see him look at me. I would see the disappointment in them if he didn’t like what he saw.

His eyes flashed and he swallowed so hard I could see his Adam’s apple move in his muscular neck. “Damn,” he whispered reverently. “So perfect.”

My body hummed with pleasure from his words. The fear that I’d been holding on to about this drifted away, and I wanted more. I was ready for Rock Taylor to make me feel good. His large hands covered the satin bra I was wearing. It wasn’t anything special, but it worked. It was one Fandora had given me after she no longer wanted it. It was one of the few things she’d ever given to me.

“Can I take off the bra?” he asked me. He was breathing hard.

“Yes,” I managed to say.

His hands slid around the back of me and undid the hook with ease. I closed my eyes this time. I was about to be bare to him, and I wanted that but I was also not sure how to handle looking at him while he looked at me.

“Oh, f**k, Trisha. God, I’m so f**king ruined,” he said as his hands grabbed my waist. I wanted his hands somewhere else. My now bare br**sts throbbed, in need of attention.

“Come here,” he said as he began to move me. I opened my eyes as he backed me up against the bed. “Lie down.”

I was ready to do whatever he asked of me. I scooted back and lay my head on the pillow. He pulled his shirt off with one fluid movement, and I had only a moment to process the perfect view of his chest before he was moving over me.

He held himself over me and kissed me less gently this time. There was a hunger to his kiss that made my heart pound. I lifted my body and grabbed his head to pull him against me. I wanted to feel his chest against mine. But he held himself off, then pulled back, breaking the kiss.

His eyes were on my br**sts. “If I do something you don’t like, tell me. I’ll stop. I swear it.”

I didn’t believe he could do anything that I wouldn’t like. But I nodded. “Okay.”

He didn’t move to touch me, and the throb in my br**sts had made its way to between my legs, too. The ache was making me feel frantic.

“Please, Rock. Touch me.” Those words came out before I could stop them. I was getting desperate.

A low growl vibrated in his chest, and he swore under his breath before his hands slid up and covered my br**sts. Then he squeezed them, making me squirm at the pleasure that came with it. “Ah,” I cried out.

Rock’s eyes burned with a brightness I’d never seen before as he looked from my chest to my eyes. His thumbs brushed over my ni**les and I bit my bottom lip to keep from making any more embarrassing noises.

Then I watched as Rock lowered his head to my chest while his eyes stayed locked on mine. When his tongue flicked out and over my right nipple, I let my bottom lip go as a soundless gasp came from my mouth, which was now wide open in wonder.

When he pulled my nipple into his mouth and sucked, I had to close my eyes to ride the wave of pleasure. Seeing him do this and feeling it at the same time was too much. I wasn’t sure I could handle any more. My body felt so tightly strung, humming with a delicious ache that would drive me mad if it lasted too long.

“Not only are they the prettiest, most perfect titties on earth, but they taste like honey. And I f**king love honey,” Rock said before licking my tips again.

Hearing him talk like that made me shiver. He was going to have to stop, but if he did, I was afraid I would attack him and demand he soothe this ache.

He continued to play with my br**sts, molding them in his hands, then kissing them and causing me to squirm and moan. Every time I accidentally made a sound, he would groan and get greedier. It was like a fire was being lit between my legs. I had to press my legs together to keep from crying out in pain.

When his mouth began to move down my stomach and then over each rib, I held my breath. I shifted some and squeezed my legs together as the throb between them got worse at the excitement of Rock’s mouth getting closer.

His hands moved over my waist, and then he slipped a finger under the waistline of my jeans. He stared at it for a moment, and I waited, unable to take a deep breath, to see what he would do.

Then his eyes lifted to meet mine. “I want to take them off.”

Yes. Oh God, yes. “Yes,” I panted.

His nostrils flared again as he began unfastening my jeans. I lifted my bottom off the bed so he could pull them down. The panties I was wearing didn’t cover much. They were too small, like most of my clothing. They were also faded and the pink almost looked white.

Rock’s hands moved up my legs slowly, as if he were memorizing them. When he got to my knees he stopped, and I was just about to plead that he do something before I combusted when he pushed my legs open. I let him, unable to tell him no about anything at this point.