: Chapter 18

This was, perhaps, a bit impulsive.

I’m straddling Vincent’s lap, hands clutching fistfuls of his shirt so I won’t fall backward and land ass-first on his bedroom floor, perched high on my knees because I’m not totally ready to put my full weight on his thighs.

Vincent’s eyes are level with my collarbone. If he looks down, he’ll see straight into the plunging neckline of my borrowed bodysuit. If he looks up, he’ll see a double chin. Nothing about this is flattering or seductive, but it’s too late to back out without awkwardly climbing off his lap. So, we’re just going to roll with it.

Because I am definitely still not good at this, I lean back—just enough to look him in the eyes—and ask, “Is this too direct?”

Vincent snorts and ducks forward to hide his smile in the crook of my neck. His hands briefly bracket my hips, then drop to my thighs, like he can’t decide where to put them.

“Please try to help me maintain some semblance of my dignity,” I scold.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not laughing at you, I promise.” Vincent’s breath is hot against my pulse point. I try not to shiver. “I’m laughing because if I don’t laugh, I’m going to explode. I’ve never gotten this hard this fast.”

Heat blooms in my cheeks and rushes between my legs.

I lower myself down onto his lap—because surely he’s just joking—and the laugh in my throat immediately turns to dust. He’s actually hard. Vincent is erect, pressed right where he’d slip inside me, and the heat of him seeps straight through both of our jeans and makes me immediately and humiliatingly wet.

Vincent groans. I startle and sit back, so my weight is on his thighs. He groans again.

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” I ask. “I’m not very small. But I guess neither are you.”

“You’re the perfect size for me,” Vincent says. His eyes dip down, following the neckline of my bodysuit, and then meet mine again. He bites back a smile. “And your tits look phenomenal.”

For a moment, the compliment is jarring. And then I recognize the words as my own.

I go very still. “You did not hear that.”

“It’s okay. We’ve all hyped ourselves up in a bathroom mirror.”

The long, strangled groan of mortification that leaves my body sounds like the dying wail of an animal. I let go of his shoulders and hide my face in my palms.

If the floor could go ahead and swallow me up, that’d be great.

Vincent gently takes my wrists and pulls my hands down between us.

“Can you please put me out of my misery and kiss me?” I grumble.

Vincent exhales a laugh, his smile heartbreakingly soft.

His lips land on my cheek first. He kisses it once, softly, before shifting to the other side of my face to do the same. I sit very still, my eyes shut and my heart lodged in my throat, as he marks a slow trail up to my forehead, then down the bridge of my nose—pausing to press butterfly-soft kisses on my eyelids—before resuming his path toward my mouth. At the last moment, when I’m sure he’ll end this torture and kiss me properly, he dips past my jaw and presses a hard, wet kiss to my pulse point.

I let out a ragged and rather humiliating whine.

“Vincent.” I’m begging. Feminism is dead. I killed her, and I don’t care.

“Oh, all right,” he sighs.

He tips his chin up in offering, and at last, I kiss him—open-mouthed and greedy.

It’s divine. It’s music, and poetry, and every other overblown metaphor I’ve ever heard about kissing. Vincent’s lips are familiar in a way that makes my heart ache. The nudge of tongue against mine before it strokes over my bottom lip is so soft, so gentle, and simultaneously hungry in a way that makes my stomach coil with heat.

“Happy?” he murmurs against my lips.

“Don’t patronize me,” I whisper. But my answering kiss says, Yes—incandescently.

Tentatively, I rake my fingernails up his chest, dragging at the soft cotton of his shirt. Vincent shudders under my hands and tightens his grip on my hips, tugging them forward until my pelvis is pressed to his stomach.

I like the way he handles me. The way he positions me just how he likes. There’s something thrilling about his strength and the unpredictability of his desire. It’s not like having a dirty daydream before bed and having to come up with the whole plot yourself. I’m not alone. He’s here. He’s real. He’s participating.

It’s so nice to want and be wanted. I could drown in this feeling.

Unfortunately, my body hasn’t caught up to the metaphors racing through my head—I have to come up for air at some point. When I do pull back to catch my breath, I’m startled by the sight that greets me: Vincent has my red lipstick smudged all over his face, from nose to chin. It’s so startling—and so filthy, so obscene—that I choke out a strangled laugh.

“What?” Vincent demands.

“You’ve got lipstick—” I gesture around my own mouth.

He arches an eyebrow. “So do you.”

I gasp, pull my sleeve over my hand, and rub furiously. Vincent laughs.

“Shut up,” I beg. “Twelve hours of smudge-proof coverage, my ass.”

“You should write a one-star review.”

I wipe hard at the corners of my mouth. “There. Am I better?”

“Much.”

“Here. Let me clean you up.”

Vincent props his weight back on his arms and lets me tend to him. I brace one hand on the back of his head, holding him in place while I wipe his mouth with my sleeve.

“Your hair is so soft,” I grumble. “Do you really not use conditioner?”

“You looked through my shower?”

“Of course I did. I warned you I would.”

If Vincent notices that I run my bare thumb back over the curve of his lower lip a few times more than is strictly necessary, he doesn’t mention it. But he does let out a soft, content breath and close his eyes when my other hand—the one braced against his stupidly soft hair—starts moving, fingers flexing so my nails trace a slow rhythm against his scalp.

It takes his eyelids a moment to flutter open again when I release him.

“All better?” he rasps.

“All better,” I confirm. “Sorry I made a mess.”

Vincent groans low in his chest. “Say that again.”

“What? Sorry?” Realization hits me. “Or I made a mess?”

He runs his tongue over the ridge of his teeth. It makes me dizzy.

“You”—I press an accusatory finger to his chest—“are a dirty boy.”

“This is new for me,” he says, palms held out in defense. “Dirty talk has never done it for me, but you and your damned poetry . . .”

“Maybe we should keep talking, then,” I say, trying to sound sultry.

Vincent snorts. “Given our track record with communication? Yeah, I think so.”

A laugh bubbles up in my throat. Vincent catches it with a hard kiss. And then I’m not laughing anymore, because the only thing that exists in the world is the heat of his mouth on mine. My fingers thread into his hair again. Vincent returns the gesture by stroking one hand down the length of my spine, from my shoulder (trapezius) to the curve of my ass. A split second after I think that I’d pay good money to have him squeeze me there, he spreads his hand and grips me so hard I let out an involuntary grunt.

I go rogue and grind down on his lap.

He’s harder. I didn’t think it was possible.

And suddenly there’s no doubt. No fear. No hesitation. It’s like some intimidatingly complex algebra equation has suddenly been simplified, and now the answer is clear as day.

I lean back again and cup his jaw in my hands. “I want to do more than kiss.”

Vincent nods. “You know how I ravished you up against that bookcase?”

“Rings a bell.”

“Well . . .” One corner of his mouth hitches. “If you thought that was impressive, imagine what I can do with two hands.”

“Show me,” I demand.

“Show you what?”

“Do you really need me to say it?”

He blinks, a picture of feigned innocence. It’s a battle of wills. Me, glaring at the enormous, dark-eyed basketball player whose hands are on my hips and whose muscular thighs are braced under me. Vincent, smiling back at me benignly, eyelashes fluttering.

“Come on, Holiday,” he murmurs. “Use your words.”

This . . . does something to me.

“Stop teasing,” I say breathlessly, “and fucking touch me.”

I reach for the wrist of the hand that’s still cradling my ass and try to redirect it toward the front of me. I can’t believe I wore jeans. I can’t believe he’s wearing jeans too. I hate them. I want them gone, immediately, and I never want to see them again.

“One or two?” Vincent asks, voice rough.

“What?”

He blinks slowly. His eyelashes really should be illegal. “Hold your hand up.”

I have no clue where he’s going with this, but I follow the order. Vincent lifts his hand and presses his palm against mine, lining our fingers up. His hand is enormous, of course. The man can palm a basketball. But it’s not until he wiggles his index finger, drawing attention to the fact that his is an inch longer and nearly twice as wide as mine, that I realize what he’s on about.

Oh. Oh.

I’m shaking, just a little, as I reach out and catch Vincent’s hand in both of mine. He lets me hold it and turn it over, examining his broad palm and long fingers before I smooth my thumb over the joint of his wrist. Vincent shivers, just a little. I think I might have imagined that, though.

“I’m asking what you can handle, Holiday,” he says. “One finger, or two.”

“Two,” I blurt. “I can do two.”

I hope. At this rate, I’m not sure I’ll survive the night.

“Good. So, I’m going to put two fingers inside you,” Vincent says as he flips over his hand gently, so I’m still holding it in mine, “and then I’m going to curl them up, like this, and you’re going to come on my hand.”

The words alone make me feel like I’m on fire. But then Vincent crooks his fingers the way he’s saying he’ll crook them inside me, and the brush of skin—the strength he has in one stupidly enormous hand—makes a muscle deep in my stomach clench.

“All right,” I say with a shaky laugh. “Let’s not be too confident in our abilities.”

Vincent blinks innocently. “I’m just trying to communicate clearly.”

He knows exactly what he’s doing. And he’d better not stop.

I sprawl back on the bed, a soft gust of air escaping his pillow when my head hits it. His duvet is smooth and crumb-free under my hands. It’s not the kind of unmade, bedbug-infested mess that Nina, Harper, and I always joke about college boys having in their rooms. Vincent keeps his space clean and bright. (I don’t know what it says about me that this is a huge turn-on.)

Vincent follows, one knee braced between mine and hands on either side of my head. He looks so beautiful above me. Dark hair falling in dark eyes. Biceps straining against the sleeves of his T-shirt, which has ridden up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin above the waist of his jeans.

This is happening.

I’ve spent so many hours of my life reading about characters getting naked. I’ve lived vicariously through a thousand different rituals of kissing, undressing, and exchanging heated words and tender confessions. And now that I’m here, actually living it, all I can think is that I really, really hope Vincent thinks I’m pretty. It’s such a silly thought. I swore to myself, back during freshman year, that I’d stop letting the male gaze influence any of my decisions. But this one male’s gaze has single-handedly fucked me up.

Vincent must know me well enough by now to recognize the agonized look on my face, because he nudges the side of my calf with his knee.

“Talk to me, Holiday.”

My eyes refocus on Vincent, who’s watching me with a little concern.

“Go easy on me, okay?” I try to make it a joke, but my voice wobbles.

Vincent catches it. His hand—the one that’s finally free of the brace—finds mine and weaves our fingers together. It’s so soft. I hate him for it, a little, because it makes something in my chest clench so tight that it’s almost too much.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” I parrot.

“I’ll do whatever you tell me to do. You’re in charge here.”

I can’t tell if the room has inexplicably grown smaller or if the low and rumbling cadence of his voice is like a weighted blanket draped over my shoulders, but I’m suddenly ten degrees warmer. The weird shivering thing my body has started doing fades. I go still. Calm.

You’re in charge.

“I trust you,” I blurt, even though he didn’t ask.

Vincent stares at me for a moment, his dark eyes sparkling in the soft light, before rolling forward on his knees to place a gentle kiss to my forehead. It’s a moment that’s far too serious and sentimental to match the muffled sounds of college debauchery seeping through the floorboards.

“I won’t let you down, Holiday,” Vincent says. Then, with the same seriousness: “Now let’s get your pants off.”