I nodded, admitting, “Yesterday feels like a dream. What if we just reacted in the stress of the moment?”What if you made a mistake?The thought hovered at the edges, but I stopped it from spilling out. I’d convinced myself Dan’s actions over the last few months had been about letting me down gently, his careful way of letting me know in no uncertain terms he wasn’t interested.
Yesterday had changed all of that. It was all so fast, my emotions, and what I thought I knew, were struggling to pull everything together and make sense of it all.
Wide-eyed, I floundered and grunted as Dan moved as quick as a red-bellied black to grab my waist and tug me back to bed. I landed with an oomph.
“You’re talking crazy.” Determination settled in his eyes. “We know each other too well to screw around, screw this up.” His brows rose as if in challenge, and I nodded. I had no desire to fight him on any of it. All I needed was to be certain that he had no regrets. “We’re going to see where this goes and have fun exploring it, yeah?”
I sighed into his hold, replastering myself against him as I inhaled the man who I wanted more than anything. “Okay, I like the idea of that. But clarify ‘fun.’”
“Fun means we enjoy being together, and only together, and we make this work as best as we can.”
I watched him carefully, trying to ignore the sensation of his warm hard flesh pressed against mine. He was distracting in the best of ways, but there was something I needed to know. I needed it spelled out for me, to be certain.
“So you definitely want to be more than friends.”
I expected perhaps a huff of laughter, a swivel of his hips to emphasise the hardness I felt against my thigh. Instead, seriousness drew Dan’s brows together. “I’ve wanted us to be more than friends for a long time.”
“You have?”
Tenderness seeped into his eyes. “Definitely. You know what happened with my ex.”
I did. The knowledge had led me to interpret his story the way I had. “You’re worried about Craig.” The statement sat heavily between us.
“Not about him not being on board with us being together,” he said quickly, surprising me. But I filed that information away for another time. “More like if things went wrong—”
“You’d be left with no one,” I cut in, my heart aching.
A slight nod was his answer.
The heavy pounding of my heart hammered with every syllable as I said, “So perhaps we go forwards expecting this, us to work out.” Dan was worth the embarrassed flush heating my skin, worth me putting myself out there and perhaps being the boldest I’d ever been.
The catch in his breath caught me off guard. While Dan was sweet and caring and showed me so much warmth that he was as good as any heater, there was a vulnerability in that one reaction I’d never seen before. “Okay.” The whispered word flowed over me, and my heart leaped with a joy I’d been worried to embrace.
Firm arms wrapped around me, and I smiled, content.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I don’t think we should fuck too soon.”
Disbelief and amusement had me pulling away and staring at Dan wide-eyed. “Are you serious?” I didn’t know if I was referring to the sweet declaration to the shift in topic about fucking, or the fact he was saying we should abstain. Quite possibly both.
A pained expression settled on his face and he nodded. “I know, right? I’m questioning my sanity too, but if we fuck on day one and for some messed up reason, it’s clear this isn’t going to work…” He sighed before continuing, “I’m not sure how’d I’d get over the memory of you being in me.”
I was tempted to argue that we’d just talked about making it work while he was thinking about us failing, but I held my tongue. What he said made some sense, I supposed. As painful as it was for me to admit it. And then there was the expectation of me being buried inside him. Fuck, I was good with that.
His stare was searching, and I thought testing the waters. In our years of knowing each other, we never talked about our dating lives. We certainly didn’t talk about how we liked to have sex.
My gaze softened. This uncertain side of Dan was alien and all levels of sexy, making his suggestion even more difficult. But reluctantly, I bobbed my head in understanding. “I get it. I’ve wanted this,youfor so long.” I stroked his cheek, clarifying, “To be inside you.”
His eyes sprang wide before a self-satisfied smirk passed over his lips. “Just how long?”
“Never mind,” I responded. “But a little longer won’t kill me, I suppose.”
“Might give us blue balls,” he said, and just like that, the tension shifted to something more familiar.
“What?” The word came out startled. “You never said anything about not jacking each other off or blow jobs.” My cock throbbed at just the thought of his hot mouth on me.
A strained look filled his features. “How about handjobs but no sucking cock?”
“I’m not sure I’m down with that,” I said, following up with an amused laugh.
