Page 45 of Let's Kiss and Tell

Hesitantly, he puts pressure on my hips. I can feel the weight of his body over my ass and thighs. It feels good.Really good.My mind starts to wander to a place it shouldn’t again. He has amazing stamina and I bet it’s not just in the ring.

“Mmm.” I let out a satisfied sound and then look at him. His face is undeniably flushed. Everything feels so dirty and sweaty, and I want to bask in it. Our eyes meet and Marsh pushes deeper. It’s with intention, and all the heat in my body is now pooling in a dangerous place.

I have a flash of what it would look like to have Marsh’s head between my thighs, or him hovering over me while I scream his name.

My hands scrape his arms, and they feel strong. He pushes again and my grip tightens around his forearm. I’m not even trying to be subtle. I arch my back in a way that I know looks attractive, and a low gruff comes out of Marsh. There’s a wicked glint in his eyes and that’s when I see it. The small inkling of animal magnetism—raw, primal desire that I need to see in full force.

Between the stretching of my muscles and the heat now climbing up my center, I don’t have a coherent thought. There’s no space, mentally and literally, to think of my next move. I just know I want him.

“Marsh—” I start but then am jolted back to reality when Eddie rings the bell at the corner of the studio, signaling a perfect combo with his other student.

Marsh immediately pulls himself off me, flashing an apologetic smile. His cheeks redden, although it’s unclear if it’s from exertion or arousal.

“You good?” he asks.

I try to regain focus—where we are, what we’re doing. I grab ahold of the hand Marsh has offered and pull myself up. I wonder what I look like, because Ifeellike a cat in goddamn heat.

“You really killed me there, Oakley.” I clear my throat. “I’ll get you back.”

“Oh yeah?” He takes the hem of his shirt and brings it up to his forehead. In a swift motion, he wipes the sweat from his face, but I’m met with a flash of his flexed torso that I just want to rewind and freeze on. “Game on.”

“Just wait until I’m the one yelling for you to go harder,” I challenge, knowing exactly how it comes out. “Let’s see if you can handle it.”

9

Marsh

My last relationship was just shy of ten years. From the ages of twenty-six to thirty-five, I was convinced that I was with the person I would be spending the rest of my life with. The fucked-up part was that I don’t know if I wanted to. I couldn’t envision a future with Julia. There was no snapshot of the two of us as seniors sitting on a porch talking about our grandkids. I never dreamed of us taking a romantic getaway to Greece one day. Our whole relationship was taken one day at a time. I guess that’s how nine years went by so quickly.

Because of our families, we knew each other growing up; then in college, I reconnected with her at a party. She was objectively attractive and kind and was studying to be a teacher. All the things that felt right. But there was nosparkbetween us. No passion. We learned to cohabitate, and she honestly felt more like a really good friend than anything else. I wouldn’t even say she was mybestfriend because we rarely talked about our feelings.

In the last three years of our relationship, I think we had sex only four times. I didn’t like the person I became when I was with Julia. I felt more like a blank slate of a person who had no hopesand dreams and just decided to bury himself in work because it’s the only thing that made sense. Work was the only thing I was remotely interested in. After we broke up, work continued to be the only thing that brought me joy.

Until last week.

I’ve been on a handful of dates in the past year. Some of these have been a result of my dating app attempt, one was a woman I met at a trivia night in Mar Vista, and another was Jay setting me up with his wife’s friend.

All the women were wonderful. I think it’s hard to find a woman whoisn’ta catch, and if men tell you otherwise, they’re trying to live out some fantasy of what they believe is theperfect woman.Sleeping with women who weren’t Julia was tough for me. Not because I still felt a connection to her, but because I was so used to doing the same routine all these years. Sex never felt like a mystery or a place to be adventurous. Like clockwork, I would just go through the motions.

I could have gone the rest of my life without having sex. I would have been fine. I wasn’t missing anything. But what I realized in the past year is that Idolike sex, and I want to share that with someone I care about. I want to make someone else feel good. It’s not that I didn’t want Julia to feel good, but sexual compatibility is real, and when you’re not compatible outside of the bedroom I’m sure that it’s hard to beinthe bedroom.

Lucy:

Coming!!

I look down at my phone and simply give Lucy’s message a thumbs-up. She wouldn’t tell me the details of today. She just told me to pick her up once we freshened up after boxing. Sitting in my car outside Lucy’s apartment, I find myself anticipating themost trivial things. What is she going to look like when she comes outside? What are we going to do? Am I dressed appropriately? These are all new feelings for me. I feel like I’m back in high school and the head cheerleader just asked me to hang out with her.

If I want the rest of this month to go smoothly, I need to get it together. Quick.

When Lucy appears, she’s wearing a pair of loose jeans, Converse, and a white T-shirt that rises, revealing her belly button when she waves to me. Her hair is long and wavy, and she has a pair of black sunglasses on that make her look like a goddamn movie star.

“Hi!” Lucy opens the front door and gets in the passenger side. It’s clear she’s fresh from a post-boxing shower. Jesus, why does she always smell so good? She puts on her seatbelt and then shifts in my direction. “All right, let’s do this.”

I turn on the car and reach for the parking brake. “Noware you going to tell me what we’re doing today?”

“Not yet.” She smiles. “First, do you have a preference for what part of town you want to go to?”

“Will that determine what we’re doing?” I ask.