Page 83 of Sex Positive

Twenty-Two

Gray light filtersthrough the windows, even breathing and soft snores rising and falling somewhere above her head. The crocheted blanket covers her lower body, and a comforting weight rests on her shoulder. After another moment of blinking into her silent apartment, Charlie remembers that she fell asleep on the couch.

And Wes is asleep beside her.

She’s lying on one of the throw pillows in his lap, and his palm burns where it rests on her arm. Rolling onto her back, she studies him, head propped on his fist, glasses resting on the arm of the couch beside him. His face is smooth and relaxed, mouth slightly parted, a faint stubble on his cheeks.

Shifting under his arm, she tries not to jostle him, but he mutters something unintelligible before jolting awake with a soft gasp.

“Sorry,” she whispers. One of her palms rests between his open thighs, her face nearly pressed against his chest.

He groans, running a long-fingered hand through his hair and down his face before stretching his arms above his head.

“You were shivering in your sleep.” He smiles blearily. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

Her chest aches at his consideration. When she sits up, the blanket falls around her waist, and her curls tumble down over her shoulder, her hair tie doing little to keep them contained. “That’s okay.” She tries to pull her hair tie free and winces as it snags on the strands. “My hair’s probably a bird’s nest right now.”

“It will make a lovely home for a pigeon,” he teases.

She rolls her eyes, but she freezes when he reaches out a hand and begins gently combing his fingers through her curls.

“I’ve always loved your hair,” he murmurs.

“Always?”

He nods, lifting his gaze to hers. “It was very distracting.”

He traces his fingers along her jaw, his touch blistering her skin, and before she can move, before she canbreathe, he brushes the pad of his thumb along her bottom lip.

“I really want to kiss you right now.”

Her mouth opens with surprise, her nerve endings sparking. Something taut stretches between them, something that began weeks ago, a persistent tug present through all their interactions, culminating in this moment.

Outside in the hallway, a door slams, voices rising and falling as her neighbors begin the new year. Inside her apartment, however, time stops. The silence, the tension, stretches, tightens. Both of them standing on the precipice of an unspoken thing that’s tenuous and fragile.

His thumb drags down her bottom lip before he pulls away. “I’m sorry. I know your rules—”

She clasps her fingers around his wrist, and his eyes widen when she guides his hand back to her lips. Wes’s mouth parts in surprise, and she has to look away from that mouth she craves to feel against hers. Boldly—much more boldly than even a week ago—she takes the tip of his thumb between her lips and sucks gently.

She doesn’t think about what possesses her to do this, to initiate a gesture that feels much more intimate than kissing. Perhaps she is tired of resisting, tired of pretending she’s not affected by his touch, his voice,him.

Wes sucks in a sharp breath, his lashes fluttering as he watches her with something akin to awe and raw desire, a delicious unexpected flush painting his cheeks.

She feels drunk with it.

She whispers, “Do it.”

He gazes at her mouth, the heat of his stare branding her skin, imprinting on her bones. Even if she were to pull away now, she can’t stop whatever this is. A part of her senses that the harder she fights, the worse it will be. Senses the inevitability.

“But—” He stops. Swallows. “Your rules.”

“I know,” she replies. “But it would only be just this once.”

His mouth—a mouth she nowknows, a mouth she wantseverywhere—curves up at the corners. Her body buzzes, a current of nerves running through her, electricity that can shock with just one touch.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” she says.

Something flickers in his eyes, and he swallows audibly. “Right.” He tips her head up, and he’s so close, his breath soft against her lips. “It’s just a kiss.”