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Give me a dark room, a cozy pink armchair, and a steamy romance novel—that's my version of heaven. Tonight, I'm buried in a story about a girl who falls for her brother's best friend, which might be the most delicious trope ever invented. These books aren't just my escape. They're my guilty pleasure and secret addiction.
Nothing in life makes me happier than reading about a man whose love for his girl is so all-consuming that he would willingly set the world on fire to keep her by his side.
If I start dating a guy who can't match their energy, I'm out. I refuse to settle for anything less than earth-shattering.
I love women. However, I always make it clear that I'm not the guy you see a future with—I'm the guy who will give you everything except his heart. I'll make you feel like a queen and meet all your needs, but I won't fall in love with you.
I refuse to risk having my heart shattered again, and one loss in this lifetime is more than enough.
I feel her vibe through the way she replies. It's playful, and it stirs something inside me. I need this. I crave this in a person—someone who can keep up with my energy—and she's doing just that.
It's because I might've missed out on something amazing with a guy by waiting for a feeling that I may never experience. Because what if that feeling never comes? What if that spark I'm waiting for only exists in books written by women?
"I can only imagine what date six with you would look like," he says, eyes darkening and flicking to my lips for barely a second. "You need to make it to date two first." "I'm not worried." The confidence in his voice makes my thighs clench. "No?" "No." "You seem pretty confident about that." Zane leans forward, muscles flexing beneath the tight stretch of his white T-shirt that highlights his muscular chest and arms. "When I know what I want, I'm very confident." "Which is what?" Despite my lack of sexual experiences, I've been on enough dates to know when there's chemistry and when there's
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"I'm sure you have plenty of beautiful women you could ask out on a date." "I'm a man, not a boy, Tessa," he says firmly, his honey eyes locking onto mine. "I don't juggle women, and I never date more than one at a time."
"If you want to see my cock, sweetheart, all you have to do is say please." His voice is a seductive whisper that I feel throughout my body, and my nipples tighten so fast it borders on painful. "I was under the impression you didn't send dick pics." "I don't."
"I don't have to touch you to be intimate with you, Tessa. My mouth this close to your body makes you feel something, doesn't it?" I watch her closely as she nods, her lashes fluttering as her eyes squeeze shut just a little tighter. "Use your words, sweetheart." "Yes."
"Just the idea of someone you crave can set your body on fire. No physical contact is needed, and that feeling you have in the pit of your stomach can be ignited by mental stimulation alone." The way her chest rises as she discreetly pushes her thighs together almost makes me want to say, "Fuck it," and kiss her anyway.
"Why have you never let another guy touch you before, but you want me to?" "Because I've never felt this kind of attraction to someone I've just met before." "So, it isn't just me then?" I give her a tender smile, and she returns it, easing the tension. "Before anything more happens between us, I need to talk to you about something." She nods, waiting, and I fight the urge to touch her again. "I don't think I'm the guy you want to share your firsts with. You deserve someone who can offer you everything you want."
"I mean it when I say I've never had an initial attraction to someone like this before. I can do casual, and I will be exclusively casual with you, but I can't do love or what it
means to be in a real relationship that ends with marriage and babies. I'm not that guy." "What does exclusively casual mean to you?" "It means you'd be the only woman I'm seeing. I wouldn't disrespect you by entertaining others, and I'd expect the same." I watch her face carefully. "But I understand if what I can offer isn't enough." "I haven't given you any reason to believe I'm looking for a marriage proposal, Zane." I run my thumb over her lips, and our eyes meet. "The things I want to do to this mouth."
"He makes me want to break every rule I've ever made." No one has ever had this kind of effect on me. Not this fast. Not like this. And I can't fight the smile that stretches across my lips, feeling like a lust-drunk teenager, completely lost in a man I barely know.
"There's so much I wanted to show you—so many things I would've made you feel." "I wanted those things, Zane." I look down at him from above, running my hands through the hair on the back of his neck, causing him to shudder.
"I have to fight every natural urge in my body when I'm around you, and I'm trying really, fucking hard, but you have to work with me here. You have to stop fighting me every chance you get, or this will never work." She sighs and runs her fingers through her hair, and I can only stand there feeling insanely jealous that it's not me with my hand wrapped around it. "You're right. I guess it's easier to try and hate you than to want you." "If that's what it takes for me to help you, then hate me all you want, sweetheart,
because I'm not going anywhere, and I will make sure you get the grades you've earned." "I'm sorry," she breathes, eyes flickering
Because no matter how complicated this has gotten, I want her. For the first time since everything went dark, I feel something other than emptiness and pain. I feel a fire inside so intense that it's almost consuming me. Even if it only lasts a beat, I'm grateful for it. I'm thankful that I met someone who helped to make me feel something good again, even if it's just for a fleeting moment.
I want someone obsessed with me—someone who wants me so completely that the thought of being with anyone else doesn't even cross their mind.
My twin sister and I will never spend another birthday together, and I know when the time comes, I'll be left to exist in a world that no longer has her in it, and I don't know how to fucking do that.
Do you want to be touched, Tessa? By a guy? No. By me.
Can't go near her. Can't let go of her either.
Have you ever been so wildly attracted to someone that you can literally feel yourself going insane? Ever wanted to touch every single part of someone's body slowly, so damn slowly, yet all at once? I want to taste my name on her tongue and breathe it into her lungs until it becomes the only word she has left in her vocabulary.
"You can't be mad at me for what I wrote, Zane. You wanted raw. You wanted honest. That's what I gave you."
I can't help but wish I were back in my bedroom as my mind becomes consumed by a single thought—Zane—except now I'm mad. Mad that he ever messaged me on that dumb app. Mad that he took me for coffee. Mad that he's my professor. Mad that he's everything I want and can't have. And now I'm just a mad, semi-drunk girl who shouldn't be allowed a phone.
"Just because I can't be with you doesn't mean anyone else gets to, and when something belongs to me, it's mine. So, tell me, Tessa, where the hell are you?" I ask her a second time.
"I didn't think you'd actually show up here." "If I say I'm going to do something, I do it." "Not true." "What do you mean?" "You said this was over between us, yet here you are." He narrows those golden eyes at me, but I can't figure out if it's in confusion or annoyance. "How did you expect me to react after our conversation?" "I expected you to accept it and go to sleep like a normal person."
"You feel it, don't you? This fire that burns between us, it doesn't go away." His eyes darken as he waits for me to continue. "Why isn't it going away?" "Do you want it to go away?" "Don't you?"
"Yes and no," he answers, turning his head away from me for the first time since I sat down beside him. "I know I shouldn't be here. I should be…" "Should be, what?" "Anywhere but here," he exclaims, his voice rough, laced with something that sounds dangerously close to desperation. His eyes flick back to me, golden and burning, filled with a war I know neither of us can win. "We both know I shouldn't have come here, Tessa. But you're all I can think about."
"There will come a time tonight when you'll have a choice to make. You'll either sober up, and I'll take you home, or you'll stay and know what it feels like to be touched by me." He silences me, but his words light me up, setting my skin on fire.
"I'm done waiting, and I'm done fighting."
"If you stay, then I want you to remember everything your body feels when I make you come for the first time, and for that, I need you sober."
"Can you stop this? Because I can't stop thinking about you." He slowly turns the stool and rests his hands on my thighs. As he opens my legs, he presses himself against me and leans in close, his lips grazing my ear.
"I'm going to make you feel everything, Tessa." "Tonight?" "No, not tonight. I want to take my time with you, sweetheart." "Why?" I run my hands over his bare chest, raking my nails back and forth across his skin while he places a gentle kiss on my lips. "Because you've waited a long time, and you deserve to be treated like a queen before I bring you home and fuck you like my whore." His teeth graze my lower lip, and his words leave me breathless. "But the first time you feel me inside you, it'll be entirely at your pace, and I promise that I'll make it as comfortable for you as possible."
"You have this side to you, this dominant side, but you're also one of the most caring and considerate people I've ever met."
"Any man can hold up a belt and call himself dominant. But if I can't make you feel like you're going out of your damn mind with need while also making you feel safe, then I sure as hell don't deserve to possess your beautiful body."
Looking down at him, I no longer see Zane, my teacher. Instead, I see Zane, the man who's ignited something inside me that I've never experienced before. This Zane is the one I've been waiting for, and despite the challenges that wanting him brings, the universe sent him to me anyway.
"Meaning that once I have control of your body and your pleasure, I'll fuck you so deep that you won't be able to tell where you end and I begin."
"I'm sorry for how I acted in class today," I say, breaking the brief silence. "I wasn't expecting that kind of reaction." "Well, I wasn't expecting that kind of poem." "I tried to write something else, but all I could think about were these feelings I was having toward you."
"All of it," I say, "but especially this last part." My finger hovers over the line. P.S. Do you still miss me? "It felt personal." "The whole thing was personal, Zane. Everything I was feeling came out on that page." "Your raw truth?" I feel a slight change in her energy as she nods to me.
"What happens after tonight?" "What do you want?" "You, as much of you as you can give me anyway."
Her words cause me to pause as my sister's voice suddenly echoes in my head. One day, you'll look at someone, and your soul will ache to touch them. Don't hide from your feelings just because they scare you.
"What's with that smile?" How did I end up with the most beautiful girl I've ever seen curled up beside me, looking at me like that? "You want the truth?" "Always." "I've only ever done that to a guy before because I felt like I had to, not because I was forced, but because it felt kind of expected." "Please tell me you didn't just feel that way with me." She shakes her head, and that smile transforms from cute to incredibly sexy in the blink of an eye. "I was desperate to do that to you."
"If you want to keep me the sweet little virgin, then that's exactly what I'll be." "Sweet little virgins, don't suck cock like you do."
Tessa's giving me something that I didn't know I needed—the chance to claim her as mine and be the only man who's been inside her. I want her—crave her.
even if her smile dares me to. I don't want these feelings to deepen any more than they've started to, because that scares the living shit out of me. However, the idea of giving her up and letting her go so she can be with someone else makes my gut twist with jealousy. Call me selfish. Call me fucked up. But I can't share her. What's mine is mine, end of.
"You with tear-soaked cheeks from choking on my dick is fucking everything."
turn me on this much, but Jesus, it does. She's a walking temptation, and she knows it.
