“I was trying to hit on you,” he says.
I scoff. “Yeah, right.”
“Believe it or not, I actually liked you when we first met.” He says this with a scoff that makes me wince. “Ryan knew, so when Tina told him that you said you liked me or that you were obsessed with me or whatever the hell you said, he told me. I had it all planned out, you know—everything that I was going to say. I guess I thought that if I tried to be funny, it might break the tension and then it wouldn’t be so awkward.” He clears his throat, then recites what he had planned on saying: “You’re obsessed with me, huh? I guess that makes two of us.” He sighs. “And then I was going to ask you out, but of course I never made it that far and all I got out was that stupid first question that probably made me sound like an asshole. So, there I was, standing in the middle of the bar feeling like an idiot after being rejected by you. And ever since, you’ve made it pretty damn clear that you can’t stand to be around me.”
“Oliver…”
“You know, I just can’t figure you out,” he continues. “I really thought we had a connection, but every time it starts to feel real, you find a way to remind me that it’s all fake. Which I guess is my fault for getting us into this situation in the first place, but yesterday…” He shakes his head. “I don’t do things like that with someone I’m not serious about.”
“Do you really mean?—”
“And I guess I thought that things were finally different after yesterday,” he continues, interrupting me. “But then I almost slipped up and told you that I love you, and honestly? I didn’t even realize what came out of my mouth until you ran away again. Which, admittedly, maybe I shouldn’t have gotten so close to telling you how I feel during a board game with our friends, but I guess I let my guard down. I didn’t think you would run away again. It hurt.”
We stare at each other while I process everything he’s saying.
“Can you please explain how I hurt you so that I can fix it?” he asks.
I shake my head, swallowing around a lump in my throat.
He sighs. “Then I don’t know what we’re still doing here.” He turns around and heads back up the stairs. I can’t bring my legs to move. It’s like my body is in shock and I can’t get my brain to tell it what to do. It’s not until I hear the bedroom door slamming that I spring into action.
I run up the stairs and follow him into the bedroom. He turns around to face me when I come in.
“I can’t explain how you hurt me because my version doesn’t make sense anymore now that I know your version,” I blurt out. “I thought that you were being mean. I thought all you wanted was a fake relationship. It killed me every time you kissed me because I was falling in love with you but I knew that it wasn’t real for you. At least that’s what I thought.”
“You thought it wasn’t real for me?” He shakes his head. “Every bit of it was real for me.”
I hiccup around a laugh. “I thought I was the only one who wanted the real thing with you.”
He smirks, and then it turns into a full smile. “How could we be so stupid to not just ask what each other wanted?”
I laugh. “We figured it out now. That’s what matters, right?”
He nods. He steps toward me and I meet him in the middle. I raise up on my toes to kiss him. His lips linger on mine, his hands cupping my face. The kiss is sweet and apologetic, and it’s not nearly as intense as I need it to be. I pull back and look him in the eye. “Is it bad that even with all of the fighting, I’ve been dying to finish what we started yesterday in the shower?”
He shakes his head, his smile growing wider. He traces the curve of my hip with his hand. “We have the whole place to ourselves right now. Want to make as much noise as we can?”
“We have eighteen condoms left,” I remind him. “Think we have time to use them all?”
“Only eighteen? I don’t know if that will be enough.”
He bends down and kisses my shoulder, then leaves a trail of kisses up my neck until he gets to my ear. “I really liked eating you out yesterday,” he whispers. He continues kissing up my jaw.
The confession makes me shiver. It sends goosebumps over my body. “No one has ever done that for me before,” I admit.
His lips reach mine and he pauses. “I feel bad for every guy you’ve ever been with, then,” he says. “They don’t know what they were missing out on.”
He reaches down and pulls my legs up around his waist, then carries me to the bed. He lays me on my back and hovers over me. There’s a primal look in his eyes right before he presses his body against mine. I can feel his hard length between my legs. I wish we didn’t have all these clothes between us.
His mouth finds my neck and he bites it gently. He moves a little lower and bites my collarbone. He lifts my shirt up. When he sees that I’m not wearing a bra, he sucks in a breath and presses his body into mine with a little more force. He kisses each of my breasts, then teases my nipple with his tongue. I wrap my legs around his back and pull him in closer. I need his body right now. This wait is slowly killing me.
“This is in the way,” he growls, pulling my shirt all the way off.
“So is this.” I sit up with him and pull his shirt up over his head. I toss it onto the floor.
He lays me back down and kisses a trail down my body. I suck in a breath when he gets to a ticklish spot on my belly. He keeps going until his lips reach my pajama shorts. He looks up at me, then continues downward, kissing me through my shorts. I can feel his hot breath as he gives me a playful bite. It makes me even wetter. I squirm, needing more. He turns his head, his lips grazing the inside of my thigh. He plants light kisses along my sensitive skin, heading back down until his lips are almost where I want them, but then he goes back up and I think I might go crazy.
“Oliver,” I plead.
