The official plan was to snuggle. But I just kept kissing him instead.
I don’t know how long this had been going on—an hour, maybe?—when I started tugging at his pants, like I wanted him to take them off. I’m not even sure what my plan was, exactly. I just wanted there to be fewer barriers between us. I just wanted to get rid of everything that was in the way.
He shook his head. He didn’t break the kiss, but he pulled my hand away. “Nope. Not a good idea.”
I went back to tug some more. “Why not?” I said, not breaking the kiss, either.
“Because we had an agreement. And I’m trying to stick to it.”
“But the agreement was more about me than you.”
He squinted at me, like,Kind of.“True. Ish.”
“So if anyone should be allowed to amend the agreement, it should be me.”
“We’re not amending the agreement.”
“Because we don’t have protection?”
At that, Owen squeezed his eyes closed.
“What?”
“We do, actually, have protection.”
“We do?”
He put his hand over his eyes. “My cousin Alex put a condom in my pocket at the party.”
I thought about that for a second. Problem solved. I went back after the pants.
“Nope,” the rookie said.
“Why not?”
“I don’t want you to regret anything.”
“I won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
Maybe he was right, but I was willing to find out. “Don’t you want to?” I asked.
He honked out a hoarse laugh. “There are not enough words in the universe to describe how much I want to. But we can’t.”
“I think we can.”
“Cassie,” he said, lifting up on his elbows, “I don’t want to mess this up with you.”
His saying no had the opposite of the effect he intended. It didn’t discourage me. It freed me up to go forward.
His saying no just made me say yes harder.
I pushed him back down on the bed and started working on him to change his mind. I kissed him with new purpose. I ran my hands through his hair. I draped myself over him.
He kept talking. “We don’t have to rush things.”
But I could tell he’d closed his eyes. And the way he was breathing—so deep and fast—I could tell that I was melting his resistance.
