Page 99 of Sex Positive

A wry smile pulls at his lips. “God, Charlie, since the day I opened my door and saw you standing there.”

“No you haven’t,” she blurts. Her heart is racing so fast, she’s afraid she’s going to pass out. Her brain can’t process his words. “No, you—you can’t have.”

“Oh?” He waves a lazy hand through the air. “Please explain my feelings to me.”

She glares at him. “There’s no such thing as love at first sight. That’s just infatuation.”

He laughs like what she’s just said is genuinely hilarious. “Always an argument with you, isn’t it?” He sighs. “Fine, Rogers. Do you want me to tell you how I liked your face first, but then I fell in love with your brain? How I liked your body, but I fell in love with that clever mouth and the confident way you speak your mind? How when I was with you, I wanted nothing more than to hear all your thoughts and opinions?”

Charlie scoffs, but he continues, unbothered.

“Even if love at first sight doesn’t exist, as you say, I knew from the moment we met that I wanted to spend all my time with you. It was soeasywith you. And falling in love with you didn’t take long after that.” He stares at her, determined. “You’re so sure of yourself, and you know what you want—” Charlie shakes her head at this, but he takes her hand, insistent. “Youdo, Rogers.”

His words are the slowest form of torture. She feels like he’s pouring salt on the wounds that never fully healed while healing them at the same time.

“You make me want to be better. Being with you made mylifebetter, even for a short while. You were—are—the best thing. You have never once been a distraction for me, Charlie. You’ve always been a safe haven. Why do you think I showed up here drunk after the clinic’s holiday party?” He runs a hand through his hair. “Part of me thought I’d romanticized you and if I asked you to tutor me, you’d prove that my memories of you were wrong. Itriednot to feel anything for you. Why do you think I was such an asshole? I wanted you to be awful, but you were the furthest thing from it.”

Charlie’s heart stutters. Her blood is on fire, roaring in her ears.

“These past few months have been simultaneously the worst and the happiest of my life. Even though our relationship was only physical for you, it meant so much more to me. Every touch, every kiss, every moment with you felt like the very best drug. It left me wanting more, and every time, I was afraid it would be the last time. I never wanted to be just some experiment to you.”

Tears of frustration prick her eyes. “Why would you agree to something like that?”

“Masochism?” He looks away. His hair looks atrocious, and her heart clenches at the sight of something so familiar. “But mostly because I’m fucking selfish, Rogers. I wanted you all to myself, especially after I heard about you and Nash. Even if it wasn’t everything, even if it tore me apart each time I got to touch you,feelyou, I was willing to let you ruin me, and I would do it again. Because receiving an ounce of your attention felt like enough most days.”

Tenderness bursts open inside her, and a tear slips down her cheek. She rubs it away.

His eyes—those fucking eyes that see her so clearly—burn with bright intensity. “I don’t have anything left to lose. You make me want to take risks, so for the first time in my life, I’m taking a risk and putting it all out there.” Gently, he clasps her hands and laces their fingers together. His eyes bore into hers, like he’s staring into the depths of her soul. “If you think it won’t ever work between us, if I’m not what you want, just tell me, and I will let you go.”

Tears blur her vision, but she can’t feel anything but his skin on hers. Her fingers clench around his hands, hands that know so much, that can pull pleasure from her body in a way she never thought possible.

She’s tried so hard to cleave him from her heart, tear him from her memory, to no avail. She’s tried convincing herself she doesn’t want him, but she’s tired of pretending. Tired of ignoring how her blood sings at his touch. Tired of trying to convince herself his presence doesn’t feel right and safe. Tired of pretending it hasn’t always been him, too.

But there is something she needs to confess to first.

“You were wrong, by the way,” she whispers, “when you said I only like you when you make me come.” She lets out a soft laugh when he frowns. “I like you all the time. That’s the problem.”

His face clears.

“I don’t despise you, and I’m not sure I ever did. I didn’t tell you the full reason why I stopped talking to you three years ago.” She studies their intertwined fingers. “It wasn’tonlybecause you left me alone at the party. I went looking for you, and I saw you with Mia. She obviously did not appreciate me being there, and then I heard you tell her you felt bad for me because I was so sheltered. And you’d never fuck a friend.” She lifts her gaze. “I wanted you back then, but I refused to bepitied. I never wanted to beonlyyour friend.”

She’s surprised by how calm she’s able to keep her voice, especially when his expression changes from confusion to alarm the moment he realizes what she’s talking about.

“Charlie, I’m so sorry,” he breathes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“And say what? Tell you that you hurt my feelings and I wanted you to kiss me instead ofher?”

“Yes!” His voice cracks, and he lets out an incredulous laugh. “God, yes. Anything but the silence. It nearly killed me.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t. It took me almost a full year to go to a party. You wereWesley Quinn.”

“I was a nineteen-year-oldasshole,” he insists. “Everyone wanted something from me. They knew I was friends with Theo Fox, and my mother was the popular Senator. I thought I needed to act a certain way, but I was a fucking asshole, Charlie. I only wanted you.”

“Then you shouldn’t have said what you did. You made me feel like I was a nobody from Indiana when I thought you were my friend. I didn’t think you’d ever want me.”

He flinches at the echo of his father’s words from so many weeks ago, but she keeps going. Too much has been lost already by not being honest.

“It’s not that I didn’t care about you, it’s that I cared too much. Because of how I grew up, I was used to having everything I said invalidated, so I was afraid to share how I felt for fear that you’d laugh at me.” Her tears, held at bay for so long, finally slip free. “So instead I cut you off because I thought it would save me from future heartbreak. I told myself it was self-preservation.” She shrugs with a watery smile. “It was self-respect to decide to hate you.”