Seven
“Wow.” I gawked, leaving my jacket behind while I stood from my seat and went over to the wall of glass.
Our capsule had only lifted a few feet from where we’d gotten on, but from here I could see around several buildings I couldn’t before, giving me a whole different view.
My fingers pressed on the window, face so close to the glass that I was breathing in the coolness that leaked in from outside. “It’s breathtaking up here.”
I glanced over my shoulder, connecting stares with Oliver. He was sitting next to the spot I had just stood from, his legs crossed, foot hanging over the edge of his other thigh, arms spread across the back of his seat and most of mine.
And while he took me all in, I saw the intensity move across his face, and it was a good thing the wall could hold me because I wasn’t sure my legs would.
Is this what I’ve been missing?
When my friends had described how they’d felt when they met their boyfriends, they never told me about the part where it became impossibly hard to breathe, where everything inside you felt like it was melting together. What they had described was an excited, anxious feeling that I completely understood from the few dates I’d gone on in the past, but those feelings weren’t anything like this.
In fact, I had absolutely no idea what this feeling was.
I pushed through the tightening in my chest as our pod moved higher, and I tried to refocus my attention on the scenery. From up here, I could easily pinpoint Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the Houses of Parliament—landmarks I’d been walking by since I arrived that became more beautiful every time I saw them. I spotted a few of the adorable red phone booths, thinking of all the photos I’d taken with them and posted online. And just as I was glancing across the Thames, the air inside the capsule changed.
It warmed.
Thickened.
Because he was standing and moving closer to me.
My hands slid down the glass, needing a new piece of cold to hold on to as my body began to heat. I didn’t turn around to meet him. I stayed, looking out the window, anticipating his actions, hypersensitive to every sound and swish of air. Tingles were shooting through my legs and around my chest, and as soon as he touched me, there was an explosion that I felt everywhere even though he was only holding my waist.
“Someone’s ticklish,” he whispered near my ear.
I wasn’t. Not normally anyway.
But with him standing behind me, positioned so my back could rest against his chest, I felt the outline of his body and the zipper of his jacket and the thick buckle of his belt.
And it was setting me on fire.
“What do you think?”
My eyes closed just briefly while I searched for my breath, and when they opened, the lights below were almost twinkling; they were so bright. “It’s so beautiful.”
My hands were still on the glass, and his were on top of mine, gripping me like he needed to hold on as well. “Not as gorgeous as you.”
When he’d moved, he’d closed the separation between us, and the parts of his body that had just been outlined before, I could feel them in full detail.
If I’d thought I was exploding during any of the moments leading up to this, it didn’t compare to what was happening in me right now.
“Look at me.” His breath hit my cheek, his scent a combination of leather and lust, and his fingers loosened, giving me the ability to turn around. “I want to say this all to your face.”
I was tingling in places I hadn’t known could give pleasure, my heart was pounding, and emotions were bolting through me.
Slowly, I turned toward him, and it was as though his hands had been waiting for me because they immediately landed on my face and held me steady. And then his eyes roamed my face like he was looking at me for the first time all over again.
“God, this red hair.” He lifted a chunk of it between his fingers, staring at my long auburn locks. “And these perfect lips.” His thumb grazed over my pout, dragging back and forth across it. “And these wild honey-colored eyes.”
Each word, each second his gaze was on me, was like a blanket of heat that spread farther over my skin, and I was basking in it. But the closer his lips got, the more this weight began to eat me.
The weight of the truth.
“Oliver …” I said so softly, but it was as loud as my throat would allow. “I have to tell you something.”
His eyes were making this so much harder. I clenched my fingers together, digging my nails into my palm.
“I have no idea how to say this.” I could see his confusion; he didn’t know what I was going to tell him, and my stalling wasn’t making it easier on any of us. “Most of this is new to me.”
“New?”
“Yeah … I …” This was so much harder than I’d thought. I’d never had to have this conversation before.
The few guys I’d gone out on dates with, it never moved beyond the basics with them. And that was because they just hadn’t interested me enough.
But now, I was twenty-one with only three semesters left of college before I would be starting my career. And my body was more turned on than it had ever been before.
I was ready.
I’d been ready; I was just waiting for the right time.
I looked at his breathtakingly handsome face and admitted, “I have no idea what I’m doing, Oliver.”
His thumb rubbed across my hip, each flick causing me to arch my back a little.
“I do.” He glanced at my lips and then gradually back to my eyes. “You’re seconds away from kissing me.”
I shook my head. “I don’t mean that. I mean …”
His hands lifted up my sides, every inch emphasized. By the time he reached my neck again, my entire body was screaming. He leaned in, and we were as close as before but from an entirely different angle. His lips were almost on mine. I could taste the lust in his cologne, and I knew I couldn’t hold it in for a second longer.
“I’ve never done more than kiss.”
The recognition passed over his face. “A virgin …”
“Yes.”
He looked me over, his eyes giving me the compliments instead of his mouth. “How is that possible?” He held me tighter. “How has someone not worshipped you?”
“Because I wouldn’t let them.”
“And me?”
His thumbs were stroking my cheeks, and they paused for his eyes to dive again. This time, he pulled back, and they fell past my face and chest. My thighs began to burn when his gaze reached them. With no rush whatsoever, he climbed back up until his stare was on my mouth.
I swallowed, silently clearing my throat. “Oliver, I told you this so … you would know to be gentle.”
He sighed, and his air smelled so good. “My sweet girl.”
His hands tightened on my cheeks, and so slowly, he leaned down and pressed his lips against mine. With my eyes closed, I instantly felt the roughness of his beard, a sensation I’d never had before on my skin and one I was seriously loving.
My mouth parted, taking more of him in, and I was filled with the warmth of his tongue. As the pads of his fingers bore down even harder, mine found his waist, holding his belt buckle, squeezing the thick leather strap. I inched up and felt the softness of his sweater, the heat from his body coming through the material.