Good For You

“For how long?”

With the edge of her soft pink robe, she wiped away the tear that escaped at the corner of my eye and murmured,

“Forever and forever and forever.”

***

Reid is dressed like a doctor—lab coat and stethoscope—

and he’s talking to God. Or someone wearing a shimmering white robe and looking an awful lot like God.

“Yes, sir, I understand. She wil . Bye.”

At the snap of my cheap flip phone shutting, I open my eyes. I’m lying on the sofa in Reid’s media room.

Everything comes into focus slowly. “Who were you talking to?”

He slips my phone back into my bag. “Your dad.” I frown. “My dad? Why?”

He crouches down next to me so we’re at eye level. “I guess we fel asleep. It’s real y late. I heard your phone ringing, so I answered it—I figured it was best for them to know you’re safe. I told him you’d be home in the morning.”

“What did he say?”

“A lot of dad stuff. Don’t worry about it now. C’mon.” He takes my hand and leads me across the hal and into his room while I’m thinking about everything I told him earlier.

At the edge of the bed he stops and his eyes travel the length of me. “I think you’d be more comfortable in something of mine.” From his dresser, he chooses oxford striped boxers and a blue t-shirt, frayed at the neckline and sleeves, soft and faded from hundreds of washes. Putting the clothes into my hands, he stops me, one hand on my arm. “Dori. Are you al right?”

I nod, certain I’m lying. I am so, so far from al right. I should feel weird that I’m about to sleep in Reid Alexander’s bed. For the second time. But I forget, sometimes, who he is to the rest of the world.

“I’l , um, change in the bathroom.”

When I come back into his room minutes later, the lights are very low—just bright enough to see my way to the bed.

The clock reads 3:11 a.m. I climb in and hesitate before moving into his arms. His hands stroke up and down my back, his lips at my hairline. I feel exactly what I felt earlier—

I need him to hold me so badly that I don’t care what comes with it. Maybe that sounds weak-wil ed, but it isn’t, because I want al of it. I just know that at some point, my wanting wil exceed his ability to give, and that wil be that. Until then, I don’t want to think or analyze anymore. I just want to feel. I tip my face up and nuzzle the underside of his jaw, and he shifts slightly and kisses me. So careful, deliberate.

My eyes are adjusting to the dim light when I move to brace above him, my hair streaming down like a screen around my face. His hands are at my waist, on top of my shirt—his shirt—fingers drifting back and forth across the smal of my back, as though they’re stuck in a loop, waiting for me to release them to wander with some magic word.

I don’t know, exactly, what he wants from me. But I know what I want from him, and I lean down to claim it, my mouth slanting over his. Not until my tongue reaches out to lick the soft, ful part of his lower lip—once, twice—does he trace the interior of my mouth, gently, with his own. I run my fingers through his hair, marveling at the baby softness of it at the nape, and he fol ows suit, winding strands of my hair around his fingers, tugging me closer. When my hands slip below his shirt, tracing the planes of his chest with my fingertips, he strokes the curves of my br**sts, mimicking every move I make.

“I can’t see your ears clearly enough,” he murmurs, hooking my hair behind my ears. Heavy and uncooperative, it fal s right back into its previous position, bordering my face.

“My ears?”

“Yeah. They’re very perceptive. They blush when the rest of you won’t.”

“I don’t feel much like blushing.”

“Oh?” he says, bemused. I sit up and back, straddling him, trembling and anxious. My apprehension isn’t going to stop me. The sheet fal s away behind me. “Dori?” He rises to his elbows as my hands find the hem of my borrowed tshirt, trace the edge back and forth.

“Reid,” I whisper, “do you have condoms?”

He stares at my face for just a moment. “Yes,” he answers, low and sexy. “But—”

Before he finishes, before the fear sinks in, before I change my mind, I grasp the bottom of the t-shirt, duck my chin, and pul it off in one fluid movement, dropping it over the edge of the bed. Fighting the urge to cover myself, I force my arms to stil at my sides, my hands braced on my thighs.

I can’t breathe.

Chapter 45

REID

I can’t breathe.

I won’t say I haven’t imagined sex with Dori, because I have and I do imagine it, but I didn’t expect it to go this far tonight. That night at the club, I’d have given odds of thirty to one that she wasn’t a virgin. But I didn’t see the heartbreak connected to that fact, or how it would play out. Even stil , her restraint has always seemed like a part of her genetic makeup. I assumed if I let her set the pace, it wouldn’t happen for a while.

We’ve been hanging out here two or three times a week for the past five weeks—watching movies, playing video games, talking… We’re not reckless every time she’s over, though it’s happened more often the more she trusts me.

Now I’m propped on my elbows, eye-level with naked br**sts, when I’ve been celibate for a longer spel —by far—than any other time since I became sexual y active. I want her so badly that I’m dizzy with it, buzzing with the desire to rol her under me and take what she’s offering.